


Until We Get There

by Pitkin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/F, skimmons - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 15:58:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 275,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5169794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pitkin/pseuds/Pitkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’ve got a tail,” Daisy announced, loud enough to hear through the phone as she watched the silver truck appear around the fourth corner, having made a successful square with the truck following. She made a left at the next possible road, deciding she would head back toward the highway to get to a better populated area.</p>
<p>Lily gasped. “You <i>do</i>??” She asked. “CAN I SEE IT!?!” She screeched in excitement.</p>
<p>Under normal circumstances, this reaction would have been more than enough for Daisy to roar with laughter and come up with an excuse for why Lily wasn’t allowed to see her non-existent tail. Today she was quiet as she glanced behind her in the rearview again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing, am not and do not wish to profit off of this work of fiction, just want to write! ;)
> 
> Sorrynotsorry for my Skimmons need. 
> 
> This is going to fall mostly in line with plot through season 3, from 3.01 up it's going AU slightly for skimmons purposes to lewd to established skimmons for the present time (future) but I'll be working backwards here and there to explain everything out, so bear with me!

“What is all that _racket_??” Jemma’s voice tinged with a combination of confusion, amusement and horror as she tried to figure out what was filtering through the earpiece of the phone pressed to her ear.

Over the odd sounds, the melodious sound of Daisy snickering filtered through into her ear and made Jemma smile, despite her confusion. There was music involved; Jemma could discern that much, at least.

“That,” Daisy finally replied, a few chuckles still escaping her as she glanced in the rearview mirror at the two and half year old strapped into the car-seat in the backseat who was wildly thrashing about, kicking her legs and swinging her fists as her hair flew in all different directions, as if they were actually in time with the song playing on the radio while Skye drove. They had just come from a birthday party and the little girl was more than all sugared up. Like clockwork, Jemma had called to check up on them while they were on their drive back home. Skye had hit the button on the steering wheel to answer the call and hadn’t had a chance to turn the music down before Jemma’s question had made her laugh. “Is the glorious sound of your daughter cementing her status as a bona fide rockstar.”

Jemma let out a laugh and Daisy could hear the unspoken _Our daughter is not going to grow up to be a rockstar!_ that she knew Jemma wanted to let out. “What on Earth are you listening to?” She asked with a chuckled.

Skye let out a scoff. “Are you trying to tell me you can’t recognize _Queen_??” She asked with her own little indignant sound, though Daisy was mostly joking.

“TURN IT UP!”

The booming demand came from the little child in the backseat, who could scarcely pronounce half of the words in the lyrics despite already being able to pronounce scientific terms that Daisy still didn’t know half the meanings of to begin with. She was doing her best to mimic the words in broken gibberish while still swinging her limbs all around. Jemma laughed.

“You heard the boss!” Daisy warned before she turned the volume up just a little bit louder. Soon Daisy’s laughter filled Jemma’s ear along with the music and the sounds of their daughter jamming along. For just a moment, Jemma was immensely sad to be in the lab on the bus instead of with the two of them. “Jem, hahahaha,” Daisy glanced in the rearview again briefly, wishing she could get off the highway and get to a well-timed red light to get some video of what was happening in the backseat. “She looks like a Muppet!” Daisy snickered. “Our daughter is Animal!”

Jemma let out a loud roar of laughter at the mental image. She put the phone on speaker when Fitz and Bobbi fixed her with perplexed expressions and explained what they were hearing. The three of them were howling with laughter so hard that it drew May into the lab to figure out what shenanigans were going on. Jemma was sure that there were only two, maybe three people who could crack Agent May’s stony game face, and one of them was Jem and Daisy’s daughter, Lily.

As the song ended, Daisy turned the volume down. She headed off the highway at their exit and, as she glanced in the rearview again, noticed, with a frown, that a truck was possibly following them. She thought she might be feeling a little paranoid after the last few weeks, but resolved to keep an eye on the truck. The roads leading to their house were much smaller than city roads, only one lane in either direction, tall trees and wooded areas lined each side of the road, neighbors were half a mile or more apart, shopping centers were grouped together a handful of miles away. Daisy would know, then, for sure, if they were being followed or if she was being paranoid. Not wanting to chance leading someone back to their house, if she was indeed being followed, Daisy began to make a series of right-hand turns, glancing in the rearview whenever she did so and, sure enough the silver truck followed her first two turns.

“Mama play it agaaaaiinn!” Lily cheered from her car seat, wanting to listen to the song again. Her cheeks were red and her hair was matted with bits of sweat from her dancing exertion, but she wanted to drum and dance the song out all over again!

Daisy glanced in the rearview at Lily and forced a smile for the little girl as her concern mounted. “Hold on a sec, monkey, okay?” she asked using one of the plethora of nicknames reserved for their daughter.

Bobbi, Fitz and even May were still chuckling at Lily’s enthusiasm. “Oh, to have the energy of a two year old again!” Bobbi exhaled a wistful sigh.

Jemma, however, picked up on the veiled distress in Daisy’s tone over the slowly dwindling laughter surrounding her. “Dais…everything alright, yeah?” She asked, immediately causing Bobbi, Fitz and May all to sober and fall silent, brows creasing at various level of wrinkled concern.

“I’ve got a tail,” Daisy announced, loud enough to hear through the phone as she watched the silver truck appear around the fourth corner, having made a successful square with the truck following. She made a left at the next possible road, deciding she would head back toward the highway to get to a better populated area.

Lily gasped. “You _do_??” She asked. “CAN I SEE IT!?!” She screeched in excitement.

Under normal circumstances, this reaction would have been more than enough for Daisy to roar with laughter and come up with an excuse for why Lily wasn’t allowed to see her non-existent tail. Today she was quiet as she glanced behind her in the rearview again.

“What?” Jemma asked, momentarily thrown by the sudden shift in the call as her mind started to repeat a mantra of alarm: _My family’s in trouble_ at increasingly paralyzing loops in her head.

“Daisy, it’s May,” May spoke up, moving closer to Jemma’s side. “What can you tell me?” She asked as Fitz dashed down the table to a console and started tapping away into controls for the large monitor in the room.

“Silver Dodge Ram,” Daisy answered. “Front plate reads…Zulu, Tango Bravo, one, seven, four….nine,” She read off after another glance in the mirror. “Followed me at least ten miles on the highway, took our exit, tailed on four right turns and a left turn. I’m heading back for the highway now. There’s more traffic to get lost in.” she rattled off street she was on and the direction she was heading in. Fitz was trying to pull up street camera feeds, Bobbi worked on getting access to the street lights themselves to give Daisy a clearer path back to the highway, hoping the tail would back off rather than escalate.

“Daisy, I want you to remain calm,” May instructed in her usual zen-like tone. “Don’t speed up or make any sudden unpredictable moves. We don’t want to tip them off.”

“You know me, cool as a cucumber,” Daisy deadpanned. She gripped and released the steering wheel, trying to relax her heart as it started to race. It would have been a different story if she was in the car alone. Lily was with her and Daisy’s mind began to wander to all the things that could happen to her daughter. She told herself not to panic and exhaled a short breath as she drove at an easy pace down a long stretch of tree-lined road, marked only by a set of railroad tracks with a four-way cross intersection just past it a few miles up from where she was currently. At the intersection, she would need to make a left and two miles down the road from there, she could hop back onto the highway.

“She’s not near any road cameras,” Fitz lamented in a frustrated mutter, instead pulling up Daisy’s SUV’s GPS signal on a map on the screen.

“The only lights to control are the railroad tracks, there, about a half a mile ahead of her,” Bobbi said.

“Wait until she’s through and then bring the barrier down and flash the crossing lights,” May instructed. “Fitz get local agents and police on the line and get them to that highway to escort Daisy when she gets there.”

“Daisy, please be safe,” Jemma murmured, wanting Daisy to hear, but not wanting Lily to be alarmed. Jemma stood there, feeling helpless and worried, biting at the cuticles of her thumb as she shifted from foot to foot and watched all the activity around her while alternating glances at the phone to listen for every little sound that came over it.

“Mama!” Lily cried in panic. “We’re going the _wrong way_ home!” She said.

Daisy licked her lips as she pulled to a stop sign about a quarter of a mile from the railroad tracks. “I know, sweetpea,” She said as she glanced over her shoulder briefly and gave her daughter a small smile. She turned back to the road and reached a hand back between the seats so she could gently pat Lily’s knee. “I forgot we were out of popcorn seeds – we can’t watch movies with Mummy without popcorn, can we?” She asked in a cheerful, teasing tone as if the idea was simply scandalizing.

May gave Jemma a gentle nudge with her elbow and nodded to the phone. Jemma cleared her throat and let out a scandalized gasp. “ _No popcorn?_ ” She asked. “I bet I know what naughty little monkey ate the last of that…” She tried to sound as jokingly cheerful as she could as she scolded through the phone.

“Uh ohhhh,” Daisy said as she began to drive again.

“It was mama!” Lily suddenly shouted.

Daisy feigned a gasp. “ _Traitor_!” She teased with a small chuckle covering over her current fears.

“May, something’s not right,” Bobbi began, speaking slowly and staring at the terminal screen in front of her in confusion.

“Show me,” May nodded to the main screen.

Bobbi tapped a few keys and the large Monitor split, half of it showing off the GPS feed that was following Daisy’s signal and the other half was showing a similar map with orange dots lining the road. “The blue marker is Daisy, the orange ones are-,”

May rushed to the end of the table and slammed a hand down on the communication button for the Bus. “Mack, get us back in the air _now_!” She shouted. “Fitz, send Mack Daisy’s coordinates!” she instructed in the same breath.

“What? The orange dots are what?” Jemma’s eyes were wide as they went from May’s form to Bobbi’s and Fitz’s horrified faces. She didn’t need them to actually tell her. She knew.

Daisy heard it – May has lost her shit over Bobbi’s comments and Jemma was now panicking. “Guys,” Daisy said to bring their attention back to her. “Really flying blind here,” she reminded them calmly.

“They’s mad you ated Mummy’s popcorn!” Lily frowned. “M’sorry I lied mama! It was me!”  
Daisy gave Lily’s knee a gentle reassuring squeeze. “It’s okay, baby, they’re not upset about that,” She promised.

“Daisy, you’re surrounded by combatants,” Bobbi said in a calm tone. “Mack’s got us airborne and Fitz has units en route to you right now. As soon as you get past the tracks and make the left turn, floor it and don’t look back.”

Daisy inhaled a long breath as she approached the tracks, forcing her foot not to floor it right away. She pulled her hand back and put both firmly on the steering wheel. “Jem?” She asked.

“Yes, love, I’m here,” Jemma answered right away, leaning on the table on her hands to get closer to the phone. Her face was tense and drawn. Her hands gripped the edge of the table to stem their trembling.

“Jem,” Daisy said as the car lurched over the set of tracks. “Everything’s okay,” She knew Jemma must be having, at the very least, five mild strokes as this was unfolding. Daisy wasn’t immune to the fear, not after everything that had happened and all they had been through to get to where they were, as a family, today. Daisy pressed her foot down on the accelerator, not quite gunning it yet since she needed to make a left turn at the intersection. “I won’t let anything happen to her, I promise,” Daisy said. “Jem, I-,”

Mid-word, Daisy was cut off by a cacophony of sounds:  
“Mama!” Lily shrieked.

“Lily – BUBBLE!” Daisy shouted to her daughter.

The clash of crunching, twisting metal colliding with metal, of glass shattering, of something scraping along somewhere, it filled the room around them from the speakerphone and sucked the air right out of Jemma’s lungs as she stared at the device. The color had instantly drained from her face, the terror at what she was hearing clouded her eyes and stretched the skin of her face taut, creasing her forehead with worry lines.

May dashed out of the room, speaking into an earpiece she had shoved into her ear and headed for the armory room. The sounds of the railroad crossing activating stopped Jemma. It let her know the phone line was still open. “Daisy! Syke! Daisy! P-please, baby – Lilly! Please talk to me!” She stared at the phone, pleading through broken half-sobs.

“Did you do that?” Fitz asked Bobbi in the horrified ghost of a whisper as he watched the dots on the screens moving.

The color had drained from Bobbi’s face when she realized what Fitz was referring to on the screen. She shook her head. “I didn’t have time to activate the crossing.” She said.

“But…but she’s-,”

“On the tracks,” Bobbi finished Fitz’s sentence.

Within seconds of the comment, the screen became a mess of colors, orange blobs converged on blue and the sole green mark, that of an approaching train became visible on the right hand side of the screen, headed right for the middle of the fray. Over the phone line, they heard the sudden onset of the train warning horn. Jemma let out a wail of a sound that she wouldn’t have characterized as human if she had heard anyone else make it. Her knees started to shake and Bobbi barely made it over to her in time to catch her before she went sinking to the floor.

“Simmons, breathe, we don’t know-,” Bobbi’s cut her own sentence off when she heard it. There were small whimpers cutting through the heavy noise, cries coming from Lily.

“Lily!” Bobbi shouted to the phone as she held Jemma up. “Bubble!” she shouted just in case Daisy’s earlier shout hadn’t been heard. 

Jemma gasped through a sob. She grabbed the table and exhaled her daughter’s name through a sob, paralyzed as she looked from the screen to the speakerphone. She was utterly helpless. Daisy was possibly dead. Lily was possibly injured. They were both either going to be annihilated by the impact of a train, or by the orange globs of color – Hydra, in full force – stopping on either side of the tracks. “Lily,” she gasped again as the sounds of the train’s horn blasted louder through the speaker. Jemma was convinced she was listening to the sounds of her wife and daughter’s deaths, if neither were dead already.


	2. What Can I Do?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take it to the flashback chorus, y'all! <3

**_2015_ **

“Hey, Fitz, check it – finally found you a monkey for the lab!” Daisy said when she had returned to base and wandered into the lab. In truth she had been hoping to find Jemma there, but she masked over her disappointment as she marched over to Fitz’s station and set down a toy monkey with a set of clanging cymbals after having wound it up.

“What happened to your face?” Fitz asked, just the barest hint of amusement on his face at the stupid monkey toy in front of him. His mind was elsewhere and Daisy couldn’t blame him for that.

“Hm,” Daisy gave him a lopsided smirk and punched his shoulder gently in jest. “I looked at that picture of your mom again,” She teased. “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…” She shrugged her shoulders up and smirked.

Fitz let out a startled puff of air with a slight chuckle tucked into it before he could stop himself.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh – made ya laugh, y’know what that means!” She pointed at him and winked.

Fitz sighed and pretended to bow down to her. “I am humbled by your ability to always remain a step ahead of me, oh wise one,” He murmured with a roll of his eyes.

“ _Still_?” Bobbi’s voice broke in as she walked into the lab after a workout.

“Five-hundred, twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes in a year, Morse,” Daisy said with an innocent shrug. 

“You lose one drinking game ever in your life…” Fitz muttered with a sigh, giving his head a few slight shakes back and forth. 

“Bet’s a bet, Scotty!” She grinned, stuck her tongue out at Fitz and lifted her hands as she shrugged again. “You guys seen Jem today?”

“She’s still feeling pretty off with the sights and sounds,” Bobbi answered before Fitz could.

Fitz was quick to nod. “Gonna take time to adjust back to normal,” He said. Bobbi and Daisy exchanged a glance; both knew Fitz’s statement was more for himself than for either of them.

“You look like you got hit by a bus,” Bobbi piped up as she nodded to the mark on Daisy’s cheek.

“More like a truck,” Daisy said as she backed toward the lab entrance. “Ask Fitz about it – he’ll get the deets from his mom,” She smirked and turned on her heel to head down the hall. She was serious, Daisy always knew this. Her humor was used to mask her worries and to get her through the day. Everyone else knew that by now, she wasn’t worried about them accepting it as her coping mechanism for reality. When she needed intervention with serious questions, they would prod her. Anyway, they’d have her report on the accident in the ATCU truck soon enough. She had already spoken to Coulson about Lash and how he had spared her when he didn’t need to – and more importantly, about how he had turned into a human - correction, how he had _shapeshifted_ back into human form! She had some ideas of who she thought that human could be – the frontrunner in her mind at the moment was Cruella De Vil herself, Rosalind Price. Daisy was on a mission at the moment, though, to finish her previously interrupted conversation with Jemma.

She checked all usual places for Jemma and when she didn’t find her, stopped in the kitchen to make her some tea – just the way that Jemma had shown her time and time again, at the right temperature, for the right amount of time, made from Jemma’s secret hidden stash that was in the far back corner of one of the bottom pantry shelves, hidden in, of all things, an empty Maxwell House coffee tin. That had always made Daisy laugh, ever since the first time she had stumbled upon Jemma digging for her coveted stash. Jemma had sworn her to extreme secrecy over this hiding space in order to keep Fitz from exhausting her stash of favorite tea. When she was done, she headed for Jemma’s dorm and knocked gently on the door.

Daisy only entered after she heard Jemma call out that she could come in, but she did hear the shifting and shuffling that had occurred before Jemma had issued the invite. She plastered a small smile on her face as she opened the door, teacup and saucer in hand. “Hey, Jem,” Her tone was cheerful, but also just barely above a whisper.

Jemma couldn’t help but smile when she spotted Daisy at her door for the second time in a couple of days. Jemma had been on sensory overload since she had returned and while her senses were readjusting, they were doing so very slowly. Because of this, she had only snuck into the lab in the middle of the night when everyone was out, asleep or just plain gone. Even then, the sounds of the machines were sometimes too much for her ears to process and her head to handle. Everyone had been walking on eggshells around her and while this was partially true of Daisy, Daisy was also the only one who spoke at barely high enough of a volume to be considered a whisper. To Jemma, it sounded as if it were normal volume and set her at ease, which made it easier to let herself breathe a sigh of relief and relax, even if only momentarily. Jemma moved to sit back against the headboard of her bed, tucking her mussed hair behind her ears and bending her knees up in front of her. “Hello, Skye,” She said. Immediately, Jemma scrunched up her face into a grimace. “Daisy,” she corrected with a sigh as she watched Daisy step over the threshold and quietly close the door behind her.

Daisy waved her hand and shook her head. “I told you,” she reminded with a gentle smile. “You call me whatever you want,” She said, still speaking softly as she approached the side of the bed. “Mind if I sit?” she asked. Jemma shook her head and scooted over, motioning for Daisy to go ahead and sit. “I brought you some tea,” She said as she handed it over to Jemma while she moved to sit on the edge of the bed as close to Jemma as she possibly could without invading her personal space.

Jemma’s cheeks were already flushed slightly, but they went pink again as Daisy held the cup and saucer out to her. “Thank you. I didn’t feel up to running into everyone and get the third degree when I appear- what happened to your face, are you alright?” As immediately as Jemma had brought the teacup to her nose to breathe in the scent of the tea - not at all surprised that Daisy had made it perfectly - she had spotted the scab and bruise on Daisy’s cheek that her short hair had been hiding. In the next instant, Jemma had put the saucer and teacup down on her night table and reached out, one hand settling onto Daisy’s shoulder and the other reaching for her chin to turn her head so she could better inspect the injury.

Daisy’s eyes followed Jemma even as her head turned with the touch. “It’s just a scratch,” she promised.

“That didn’t end so well for the Black Knight,” Jemma murmured as she studied the wound to make sure it had been properly taken care of.

Daisy bit into her lip and stifled a snicker, breaking free to turn her mouth down into her hand so she could stifle her snickers into her hand to keep them from being loud. She was certain this was the first actual joke she had heard Jem make since her return. Daisy should have figured it would be a _Monty Python_ reference. “I promise, I have full medical clearance, Dr. Simmons,” She whispered with a warm smile. “Thank goodness there are no needles for the good doctor to get poke happy,” she teased gently.

“You’re lucky she’s on hiatus,” Jemma replied, narrowing her eyes, though there was just the ghost of a smile on her lips that made Daisy’s heart soar when she realized that little hint of a smile had reached her eyes as well. 

“I’m sorry our conversation was interrupted before,” Daisy had specifically turned her phone to silent before she had come to Jemma’s room, in fact, so that she would be sure the buzzing phone wouldn’t interrupt them again. Jemma’s hands were still on her shoulder and her cheek, just below the discolored marking. “I never thought I,” Daisy paused a moment and shook her head gently. “I never thought we’d find a way to bring you back,” She whispered, trying her best not to let her emotions well her eyes up a bit. She fought against the urge to wrap her arms around Jemma to hold tightly onto her for fear of the sensory overload it would cause the smaller woman.

As if she could sense the need for it, Jemma’s hands slipped around Daisy’s shoulders and pulled her in against her drawn up legs. Daisy was quick to respond, moving her arms around the somewhat balled up bundle of Jemma, but her touch was restrained in an attempt to be as gentle as possible. It was a far cry from the times Daisy has rushed across rooms to throw her arms around Jemma in relief after the fallout of some of their missions, or even from the times she would stumble upon Jemma in the common room or the kitchen, lost in thought and feeling generally upset. “I thought you’d never _want_ to see me again, anyway,” Jemma murmured and Daisy heard the small sniffle she couldn’t cover up.

“What?” Daisy’s reply came on an exhale of air. Her grip tightened somewhat around Jemma but rather than pull away, Jemma’s arms circled tighter around Daisy’s neck and shoulders until her hands were holding onto the backs of her own arms. Daisy’s hands moved over Jemma’s hair and along her back in gentle strokes without letting go of her.

“After all the things I had said to you,” Jemma whispered, turning her head down into her arms and Daisy’s shoulder. “After Trip…and…after your mum – I-I thought for sure you would hate me, and I never got to apolo-,”

“Jem, no,” Daisy gave her head a small shake and adjusted her arms around her friend. Before she could overthink it, she turned her head and buried a gentle kiss into Jemma’s hair against the side of her head. Unconsciously she was rocking them just ever so slightly, barely noticeable, except that Jemma’s senses were on overload, so she was acutely aware of it. “I would never hate you,” Daisy whispered. It wasn’t even a question of whether or not Daisy _could_ ever hate Jemma Simmons. She could not. It was a matter of whether or not she would choose to put up a charade of such a thing to protect herself or her heart in some way. The answer was still no.

Daisy had strong feelings for everyone on the team. She had finally settled into the idea that she had a family and a home and that those things might not be ‘perfect’ in the pipe-dream forever home idealistic kind of way, they were perfect in their flaws. They were real. They were tangible. They had saved her life and saved her from herself on numerous occasions. None of them, however, came remotely close to the feelings she had for Jemma. The two had crossed a handful of lines from time to time over the last couple of years, but had never actually spoken about such things. After Daisy’s changes had been found out, that she was an Inhuman, everything had happened so fast there had been no time to resolve anything. Besides that, Daisy wasn’t going to go all ‘Fitz’ on Jemma and confess her undying love for her when she had just returned from, literally, across the universe. “I know you were scared – not of me, for me,” She clarified. “I love you, Jem,” she said easily, not confessing her undying love, but needing Jemma to know that this was true, just like it was for anyone else on the team. “We both made mistakes and there was a misunderstanding between us, but…we sort it out and it’s water under the bridge…that’s what families do, right?”

For a long time, Jemma was simply quiet, allowing herself to take comfort in the strong embrace cocooning her. Daisy’s muscles were much more sculpted than when Jemma had last been close enough to notice. She had certainly been keeping up with whatever routines May had taught her and whoever was training with her now. She inhaled a small sniffle and let out a slow breath as she nodded against the side of Daisy’s head. “Yeah…” she squeezed Daisy tighter.

“What can I do?” Daisy asked, gently rubbing her palm along the length of Jemma’s spine. “Tell me what you need, Jem,” She pled, wanting to feel anything but helpless when it came to Jemma.

“I don’t know,” Jemma’s voice was such a soft whisper that Daisy was almost convinced she had actually imagined it.

For a long time, Daisy simply held onto Jemma and rocked with her, just slightly. She didn’t whisper any insistences that things would be okay, that she just needed patience or anything like the things that the others had been telling her. Daisy just let everything be. Sometimes, a person had to accept that it might not be ‘okay’ by the definition that anyone else was going by for a situation. By the time Jemma’s legs were numb from the way they were sitting, Daisy finally spoke in her whispered tone again. “Will you trust me to take you on a field trip?” she asked.

Jemma sniffled once more and moved to release her grip on Daisy. “A field trip…?” she let her hands drop to the tops of her knees and then slipped them around her legs.

Daisy nodded. “A field trip. It requires no driving or flying, only you to trust me,” she said. Her hands stroked very lightly over Jemma’s hair and down her arms to her hands, squeezing with just the barest of pressure when she reached them. She lifted her right hand free and held it out to Jemma, palm up. Her eyebrows were arched just slightly. Jemma stared at the extended hand for a few long moments. She licked her lips and pressed them into a tight line, eyes travelling from Daisy’s hand, up the length of her arm to her eyes and then back, slowly. Finally, she gave a firm nod and reached out to securely wrap her hand around Daisy’s. Daisy smiled warmly at her and cupped Jemma’s hand in her own. She moved to stand up and held her other hand out to Jemma to help her stand up.

Daisy walked Jemma through the least often used corridors and stopped in the hallway of the supply closet for a few moments, leaving Jemma in the hall. When she rejoined her, she had a pair of rounded goggles in her hand. She hooked her hand into Jemma’s again and they started talking once more. They loaded into the freight elevator and rode up to the top floor. After winding down one last, long corridor, Daisy stopped at the door. “I’m gonna need you to put these on before we go any farther,” she held up the goggles by their head strap with one hand and reached into her pocket to pull her own sunglasses out and put them on. Jemma didn’t ask any questions. Daisy had asked if she trusted her to take her on a field trip and Jemma did trust her. When she put the goggles on, Jemma was initially disoriented by the sudden darkness. She could barely make out Daisy’s form through the lenses and she reached out immediately and wrapped her arms around Daisy’s closest arm.

Daisy brought her free hand to rest along Jemma’s hand on her bicep. “I know it’s disorienting,” she spoke softly. “But you’re gonna need them out there,” she assured. She let go of Jemma’s hand to open the door they were standing in front of, allowing bright sunlight to spill into the hall they were standing in. Jemma squinted against the brightness even with the extremely dark sun goggles on. Daisy waited there, with the door completely open, standing on the inside of the threshold, waiting for Jemma. “We won’t go any further unless you want to,” Daisy whispered.

“Skye...” Jemma frowned. “Daisy…I…” She felt momentarily speechless.

“I know you’ve been outside already…that Fitz took you to dinner, but I know he took you at night,” Daisy spoke gently. “I just...I overheard you on my way out on a mission when you were talking with Bobbi…about the sun,” She cleared her throat as she watched Jemma. “I’m sorry if it’s too much…” She whispered.

Jemma was staring ahead at the brightness. Beneath the goggles, her eyes were welling. Her fingers clamped tighter around Daisy’s bicep. Daisy just waited, patient and steadfast. “I want to,” she finally said with a decisive nod. Slowly Daisy walked, step for step with Jemma until they were out in the middle of the rooftop with the bright sun beating down on them on an absolutely cloudless day. Jemma squinted behind the goggles and, though it was several shades darker from her visual stand point, she could feel the heat of the sun’s rays beating down on the black hooded sweatshirt she was wearing. She could feel it across her forehead and beaming down on her cheeks, on her hands – which she still had firmly clasped around Daisy’s bicep.

For the next half an hour, neither of them spoke. Daisy only moved when Jemma did. After the first fifteen minutes, Jemma let go of Daisy’s arm so that she could pull the sweatshirt off of her arms and drop it to the ground. She rolled the sleeves of her oversized t-shirt up and then frowned after pulling her hair up only to realize she didn’t have anything to tie it up with. Daisy smiled and passed her an elastic band from around her own wrist. Jemma turned her head down for a long few minutes, letting the sun beat warmly on the back of her neck. She walked the rooftop and circled back to Daisy. She clasped one of the Daisy’s hands and stood there in the warm silence between them. After that first half hour, Jemma clenched her eyes shut and pulled the goggles off. She let them gently fall on top of her discarded sweatshirt and turned her face up to the sky, letting the heat warm her entire face as she tried not to cringe about the spots the bright light caused behind her eyelids. Tears streamed freely from beneath her eyelids and down her cheeks. Still, Daisy remained rooted to the spot next to Jemma, silently standing watch over her, waiting just in case she was needed.

A sob escaped from Jemma and in an instant, just as Jemma was turning toward Daisy and wrapping her arms around her middle, Daisy was gathering Jemma in her arms. Jemma buried her face into Daisy’s collar, resting her forehead into the crook of her neck, her face into her chest. The sobs racked her shoulders and Daisy held on tight, waiting Jemma out, letting her release whatever she needed to release into the world to get it out. After the sobs subsided into hiccups and attempts to catch her breath, Daisy bents down and hooked Jemma’s dropped sweatshirt and the goggles and then led Jemma back inside with the reasoning that Fitz and the others would have her hide if they found out she’d let Simmons get sunburnt on her first trip out on a sunny day. 

Daisy shut and locked the rooftop door behind them and then turned with the intention of leading Jemma back to the freight elevator until Jemma asked if they could just stay where they were for a bit. Her voice had sounded so broken while she had leaned into Daisy’s side that Daisy simply had no choice but to agree. Truth be told, Daisy would have agreed anyway, but that was beside the point as far as she was concerned. Before she could suggest sitting down, Jemma had burst into a new round of tears and within moments, Daisy was sitting with her back against the wall next to the door with Jemma pulled sideways across her lap, holding onto the crying woman and rocking with her again, this time a more pronounced motion. Without prompting, Jemma suddenly began an elaborate confession. She told Daisy all about what had happened after she had gone through the portal, in broken detail as her sobs had fallen into sniffles and strained her voice. Jemma’s head rested on Daisy’s shoulder, burrowed once against into the crook of Daisy’s neck. Daisy’s arms were wrapped firmly around Jemma, stroking her hair, running her fingers along her back, giving her a firm squeeze or two when she would feel Jemma leaned more weight against her. 

She told Daisy about Will, about their initial meeting, her temporary ‘captivity,’ how she had lost all hope of ever being found by the team or of finding her way back to them…and everything that had come after until they had opened the portal and dragged her back through it. When the story was over, for a long time, both Daisy and Jemma were quiet but for Jemma’s occasional sniffles. Daisy wasn’t sure what to say. There was an aching pit in her heart that wanted to make a joking quip about having double the competition now, but she forced herself not to use her defense mechanism. Now was not the time to protect herself from her own unrequited emotions. Now was the time to take care of Jemma and that was exactly what Daisy planned on doing. “Jem-,” 

“I have to find a way to go back,” Jemma’s statement was final, even in the whispered tone she said it in. It seemed to suck the air right out of Daisy. A long few moments passed between them and Jemma sniffled again, letting out a few anxious sobs. “Please say you understand…” She begged.

Daisy had been clutching Jemma to her, her hand against the back of Jemma’s head as she cradled her into that crook of her neck and shoulder that Jemma’s face just seemed to fit so perfectly into, holding onto her arm and shoulder, stroking along her back. She told herself that Jemma needed her, she needed Daisy to be on her side, to be on _Will’s_ side with only the knowledge of him of what Jemma had told her. She licked her lips and inhaled a slow breath. “Anything you need from me to get him back, Jem,” Daisy said, nodding her head as her cheek moved against the side of Jemma’s head. “It’s yours,” She assured, giving Jemma’s arm a small squeeze before her arms wrapped firmly all the way around Jemma to hold onto her. She kissed the top of Jemma’s head as Jemma’s hands come up to hold onto her arm. 

Jemma cried harder in her arms. “Thank you,” she said between the waves of tears. She repeated it, voice cracking, a few times and Daisy murmured gentle reassurances until Jemma had exhausted herself. For a long time, Daisy sat there on the floor, letting Jemma sleep off the crying jag while running her hand along Jemma’s arm. Eventually, she had to wake Jemma so she could return her to her bunk and meet up with Coulson for a meeting. She had meant what she had told Jemma about helping her find a way to get to Will, but she wasn’t about to let Jemma go back through a portal to do it, that much she knew. She dropped Jemma in her room and tucked her into bed with a kiss to the temple before she headed for Coulson’s office, her mind miles away as she tried her best to focus on what he was saying to her about the current Inhuman situations and scolded her about not answering her phone and wandering off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thaaaaaaank you very much for the kudos and comments babes!! I really appreciate the love! Would have had this to you sooner but TWD messed with my brain last night!!! 
> 
> Hope you dig this one and I'll hopefully have the next bit with more explanations up at some point later today! Thanks for taking this little journey with me!! :)


	3. Been A Long Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bc the train kept a-rollin' -- allllll night long!!
> 
> **Forewarning:** There's a decent amount of violence/blood in this chapter.

Daisy’s arms were twisted and hanging down to the ground over her head and against the roof of the SUV that had wound up on the ground when the vehicle had rolled after impact from a truck that had hit them head on at full speed. The sounds of Lily’s whimpers from the backseat were what pulled her from the bleak veil of unconsciousness. She managed to crack her eyes open at first, which set the world spinning around her. She heard the crackling sound of the audio coming through the speakers, Bobbi’s voice shouting the word ‘bubble,’ at the same time, the loud whistle of the train’s warning horn blared through her ringing ears. Daisy’s eyes snapped open wide and managed to focus out through the busted and half bent front windshield to see the approaching train. With a grunt of pain as the horn blasted again, Daisy pulled her arms up and grabbed for the seat belt hook only to find the hook was jammed, preventing her from breaking herself free.

Daisy looked into the backseat. She could hear Lily’s whimpers but she couldn’t see if she was injured through the thick, violet colored haze of the orb that surrounded her after Bobbi had shouted over the phone at her. At the very least, she knew that Lily was well enough to produce the protective sphere and she knew that Lily had put the sphere into place just before the other truck had rammed into them. Lily was young and Daisy had no idea how her protective bubble would hold up against the force of a train, or how long she would be able to keep it active under duress and while possibly injured. Daisy’s head searched all around them for a way to get both of them - or at the very least just Lily - out of the car and off the tracks. In her line of sight through the windows of their upturned SUV, she spotted vehicles screeching to halts on either side of the tracks and the pairs of legs of people jumping from those vehicles.

The train was barreling towards them, its emergency brakes squealing viciously as the metal of the wheels and the tracks ground together to try to slow it. People outside the SUV were shouting. Lily was whimpering behind her. Bobbi and Fitz were shouting information to May over coms and Jemma had gasped out Lily’s name. Everything happened so quickly, Daisy simply reacted. She threw her arms toward the side of the tracks she thought was the direction they had come from and used as much of whatever energy she had left in her to send out a forceful set of shock waves. It sent the front passenger door, in its mangled state, flying out off of the car frame, airborne until it collided with one of the combatants, sending him and the door into a set of parked trucks. Once the waves hit the barrier of the cars, it had the desired effect Daisy was looking for as she continued pushing them out so that the upside down SUV slid across the ground and off the tracks. It did so with a loud grinding sound, scraping of metal as it dragged them across the broken glass of the road. The train still managed to clip the back end of the SUV with an explosive sounding crash that sent the SUV spinning and sailing further as Daisy’s arms fell limply to the roof again in exhaustion. The crash took out the rest of the electronics in the car, effectively ending the call midway through the sound of Jemma screaming Lily’s name. 

Daisy heaved for breath. In the backseat, Lily’s whimpers became cries and she even let out an anguished cry of ‘Mama!’ for Daisy. At once, Daisy was back in motion. “Lily,” She called through a labored breath as she wrapped a hand around the connector where the seat belt was bolted into its clasp. The hook and clasp shook violently beneath her grip until it had shattered apart and Daisy barely had time to break her fall with her shoulders, elbows and arms. She landed with a groan and a thud against the roof, the edge of the steering wheel slamming into a wound along her side. She exhaled a grunt of pain but was crawling through the bits of twisted metal and glass almost as instantly as she had landed, pulling herself into the backseat, lying on the ground under where Lily was suspended upside down in her car seat. Her protective bubble was gone and Daisy wasn’t sure if that was because she was worn out or injured. 

Dizzy, injured and disoriented, Daisy scrunched her eyes shut and popped them back open. She heard scrambling from the people outside on the street and knew she had limited time. Lily’s arms hung down and reached for her, trying to break free from her car seat as she wailed. “Baby-,” Daisy grimaced as she moved to sit up enough to reach her daughter. “It’s okay – No, no don’t move, don’t move yet, hold on, stay still,” she reached up and gingerly pressed along the sides and back of Lily’s head, neck and shoulders, trying her best to feel if there were any injuries she could make worse by moving Lily while fighting the want to unhook Lily to pull her close and protect her from whatever was awaiting them outside the car at this point.

“Mamaaaa!” Lily wailed. 

“I know, baby, I know,” Daisy fought against the pain in her chest that hearing the distress in Lily’s voice caused her so she could focus on what was happening around them. The train was still screeching by, slowing down more with its emergency brake, preventing them from being surrounded on both sides at least as it cut one side of the tracks off, but they were vastly outnumbered, Daisy was injured and Lily...Before her brain could finish the thought, a hand had wrapped around her leg in the middle of the shin and yanked. Daisy let out a cry of pain as she was raked, face down, over the fractured metal and shards of glass on the ground, opening new wounds as she was dragged out through the backseat door’s window. The hand let go of her leg and Daisy groaned as she tried to roll to her back only to receive two swift kicks to her ribs when she had made it to her side. Steel-toed boots caused her to gasp and cough, trying to catch her breath as the pain shot through her entire body when they jammed into her ribs. What had been possible torso injuries from the initial car wreck now turned rapidly into cracked, possibly broken ribs with the kicks. 

“Hello, Skye,” A deceptively chipper but gruff voice greeted her as the man bent his knees and crouched down to get closer. Daisy’s eyes widened as she turned just her head to see for her own eyes that the unmistakable voice belonged to who she thought it did. Sure enough, there he was, face covered in twisted scars, some that covered what she could see of his hands too – scars that Daisy had personally given him… _but…but that was impossible_ she thought, _I killed him…after what he did to…_

”It’s been a long time,” A wicked grin crossed his face as he leaned closer. “Thought you’d never see me again, didn’t you?” He taunted her. Daisy was almost paralyzed in the moment in disbelief and fear. Disbelief because she had _killed_ Ward…fear because Lily was inches away from the psychopath who had nearly taken everything from Daisy in the recent past, before Lily had even been conceived. Lily’s cries pierced the air. 

“Now what have we here?” Ward’s voice came out as a singsong tone as he ducked to look through the window.

“No!” Daisy gasped as Ward leaned in toward the window to look inside. She grab into Ward’s arm only to have him twist his arm free before slamming his fist into her closest cheekbone, which sent her head slamming to and bouncing off the ground. The world was literally spinning for Daisy as Ward stood up quickly and walked around the other side of the car. Her jerked the mangled door right off of its frame and tossed it aside with ease. Lily hadn’t seen what Ward had done to her mother, but she was terrified and still stuck in her car seat so the sudden dismantling of the door had her shrieking in fear. 

Ward crouched down, “Hey there, sweetheart,” He said in a gentle singsong tone to the girl. “What’s your name? It’s alright, I’m not gonna hurt you-,” The lie was barely off of Ward’s tongue as Daisy surged to react. 

“Lily!” Daisy rasped. She rolled onto her stomach and used her elbows to start crawling back into the car. “Bubble!” She said, alerting Lily that this man was not a friend. The violet protective sphere appeared as Ward was reaching for Lily. As soon as his hand came into contact with the border of the purple sphere, shock waves of electricity shook Ward to his knees and he yanked his hand back with a groan of pain. Daisy’s fear kicked her adrenaline into overdrive. She combat crawled across the roof of the car, gasping for breath as she went. She definitely had a broken rib, among other injuries, including a gash to her head that had been bleeding since she had woken up in the car after the crash. Her side was bleeding, a couple of other bones were possibly broken as well – the cheekbone that Ward had hit may have been one of them.

Ward let out a peel of laughter. “Gotta hand it to you, Skye,” He said as he tried to regain his senses about him. “I didn’t think you’d have another one, not after what I did to the first one.” He laughed. Daisy moved to crouch on her knees. Ward’s words hit her as she was going to reach through the protective shield – something only she and Jemma were ever able to do once Lily had set it in place – to unbuckle and catch Lily so she could get them out of there. Ward reached inside the car to try and grab her by the throat. Daisy caught his wrist and twisted it with such force it actually turned his body as she heard the bones cracking while Ward cried out in pain. Daisy let go of him and held both her hands out, using her shock waves to send Ward sailing over the ground and up against one of the metal sides of the train’s cars. Ward fell to the ground with a crunch as Daisy turned back to Lily.

“M-M-Mama!” Lily sobbed. Daisy could hear the exhaustion in her voice.

“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” Daisy assured. She unbuckled the car seat belts, holding Lily still in the seat with one hand. Once the buckles were free, Daisy caught Lily as she landed back against the roof of the car and ground and wrapped her arms around her daughter. At once, Lily’s face was buried into the crook of Daisy’s neck and shoulder, her little arms wrapped around Daisy’s neck as her legs wrapped around Daisy’s sides and squeezed. The pain that shot through Daisy in that moment from the vice grip made her dizzy but she ignored it. Her mind raced. She needed to get them out of here. “It’s okay, baby, you’re okay, we’re alright,” She murmured reassurances, finding it harder and harder to catch her breath. Seeing that Ward was still unconscious, Daisy crawled out of the car on the side he had tried to break in through, moving on her knees as she held Lily, one arm braced under her rear to hold her weight and the other one around her shoulders and cradling the back of her head to keep it pressed to her shoulder and neck. She stayed crouched next to the back end of the SUV, peeking around it to get a look at what she would need to do. 

Daisy realized, with a good bit of horror that the combatants on the other side of the train were climbing through where the cars split, where they were connected together, to get to the other side. “Lily,” she spoke as calmly as she could, trying to sound encouraging as she caught her daughter’s attention. “I need to hold on, with your arms and legs,” She said between labored breaths. “As tight as you can. Can you do that for me?” she asked. As Lily nodded, her grip on Daisy, both her arms and her legs, tightened into a vice to the point that Daisy had to bite down into her lip to the point that she drew blood to stifle a groan of pain. “Good girl,” she said, still breathing hard. “Good girl – no matter what, don’t let go, okay?” She waited for Lily to nod and when the little girl let out a whimper, Daisy kissed the side of her head. “It’s okay, baby, I won’t let anything happen to you,” she promised. 

Daisy moved around the back of the SUV, She kept Lily’s back turned toward the metal of the upturned vehicle to keep it shielded and crouched down to the ground, leaning down onto one knee and keeping her other foot flat so she would be able to stand up as soon as she needed to. Frist she put her hands out to either side and with a loud pulsing whoosh of air the enemies that could view them were flying through the air and falling, dropping weapons in their wake. Daisy dropped her hands, breathing heavy and labored. 

“Mama,” Lily whimpered.

Daisy could feel the way her daughter was trembling and it made anger surge through her, overtaking her exhaustion and her growing fear. Her hands came to rest on the ground. Tremors began to shake, spreading out in a wide circular range from her fingertips outward, cracking the ground, knocking people over, shifting cars, opening fissures. Daisy ground her teeth together as she worked until all their threats in the immediate were taken care of. She wrapped her arms back around Lily, one under her read and the other along her back so her hand to cradle the little girl’s head to her shoulder again. She oriented herself in the direction that she would have had to make that left hand turn after the track and started running, pain at the back of her mind as she repeatedly reminded herself that Lily wasn’t safe yet and Grant Ward was _alive_. Her legs carried her, her lungs fought for air as she gasped out a reassurance every so often whenever Lily whimpered or sniffled. She made the left turn, dodging around the cracks or fissures she had created and then sprinted into the thick cover of the woods, angling in the direction that would cut her distance to get to the highway. 

She had run almost half a mile before she realized her routes would all be cut off. As she spotted approaching attackers in the distance, regardless of what direction they were in, she would instantly swing a hand out and send the attacker – and whatever surrounding trees, branches and debris she could, flying into the air or clattering to the ground with the vibrating waves. Almost a mile into the woods, she found a hollowed out thicket of a huge oak tree trunk. She did what she could to get through the thicket without breaking too much of the cover and did what she could to move them as far away from the opening as possible as she huddled in there, keeping Lily turned with her back to the trunk. She leaned against the inside of the trunk on her right side and curled as much of her body around Lily to keep her covered.

The little girl was still crying and whimpering and Daisy was having so much trouble catching her breath, her head was spinning. She gasped as she held onto Lily. “Shhhhh, honey….Lily, shh…we have to be quiet, okay? Like,” She paused as she gripped her daughter and fell into a fit of watery coughs only to find that the liquid causing the gurgling sound was blood when she coughed it out onto her forearm. It could have been from any number of injuries. Daisy had never stopped to assess what her exact injuries were. Lily would be safe long enough for May and Jemma and the others to get her. That was what was important. “Like when you play hide and seek with mummy – okay?” She asked Lily. She was starting to panic, wondering how, exactly, the team would find Lily when she felt something against her neck and collar. She rubbed Lily’s back gently. “Monkey, c’mere, let me look at you, okay?” She asked. “Are you hurt?” She spoke in a raspy whisper, trying to ignore the pain in her chest as she tried to breathe as slowly as possible. Lily was reluctant but when she leaned back, Daisy saw it. 

Around Lily’s neck was a gift that Fitz had given her for her second birthday – it was a necklace that was shaped like a monkey (Lily’s favorite animal – which she liked to imitate by climbing up and onto any and everything that was four or more feet off of the floor, much to Jemma’s absolute terror). There was a very tiny button on the back of it that Fitz had told Lily to press any time she was in danger and needed Jemma, Daisy or anyone else from the team…from their _family_ to come and get her. “Thank you, Fitz...” she breathed as she reached for the necklace, feeling around until she found the switch and flipped it. She knew it would instantly start sending out a signal to each member of the team’s cell phones, giving them coordinates. 

“Mama,” Lily whimpered, reaching out to touch Daisy’s temple with a frown. “You’s bleeding,” she said. 

“I’m alright,” Daisy said immediately. Her head wound was bleeding but so was one side of her nose and her coughing jags led to a lot more than blood coming up. Daisy could see the fear in Lily’s face. “I’m alright, baby,” she said between labored gasps, trying to take her inhales and exhales in as long and slowly as possible to keep from alarming Lily further. Daisy knew she was in bad shape. She was beginning to think her rib had punctured her lung. On top of that her head wounds weren’t helping her as far as staying conscious was concerned, especially now that she was sure the team would know where to get Lily from, which left her adrenaline beginning to wane and the pain to seep in. “Listen to me, okay?” Daisy rasped, blinking her eyes open repeatedly as they fell. Lily whimpered and Daisy pulled her back in, guiding her daughter’s head to her shoulder and holding it there, cradling the back of her head and pressing her hand in circles along Lily’s back. “Mummy’s on her way…” Daisy promised. “Aunt Bobbi…Uncle Fitz too,” she said. “I need you to promise me,” she paused, another coughing fit taking her over. She curled them, moving so she was still cocooned around Lily to cover her, and coughed out a large wad of blood, possibly with a clot of some kind or some other material, onto the ground behind Lily. She was left gasping again for air. “Promise me, if anyone other than…other than mummy comes for you…promise me you’ll use...your bubble? Okay?” 

Lily nodded against her shoulder. Daisy gripped her tighter, trying to breathe while her eyes finally began to well over as the full breadth of the situation around her became clear. Lily would be safe, she would make it out of here…Daisy would not. “Say it,” she demanded. Lily repeated the deal in slightly broken words. “Good girl,” Daisy exhaled a sigh. “Lily,” she said, staying as calm as possible as the tears came now, whispering to make sure she wasn’t heard. “I love you,” said between her shallow gasps, repeating it over and over whenever she had enough breath or strength to, not wanting Lily to forget this fact ever. Her eyes closed for a few moments every so often but she fought to bring them back, determined to listen for approaching intruders so she could defend them if needed. Her grip on Lily slackened. It felt like hours, but Daisy had no idea how long it was in reality. 

“Mama?” Lily whimpered when Daisy’s grip seemed to loosen around her. She shook Daisy’s shoulder. 

“Lily,” Daisy murmured, unable to lift her head or control her limbs, much less her breathing. Her breaths came in shallow gasps that were far apart now. Each exhale held a gurgle of liquid that daisy was too weak to even choke on as it sputtered back into her lungs. “I love you,” She was barely conscious enough to say it but she fought. Daisy fought right up until she heard a familiar voice. 

“SIMMONS, WAIT!” It was Bobbi. Daisy heard gunfire following the voices.

“LILY!” Jemma’s voice called out, ringing through the surrounding woods as the team volleyed fire back at the enemy.

Daisy felt herself slipping then. Air was seeping from her punctured lung into her chest cavity, preventing her from getting air. Coupled with her other injuries, it was too much to hold on. She felt far away from the situation as her hearing muffled. “I love you,” she exhaled against Lily’s ear. Her limbs and fell limp after that as Lily began to wail her name.


	4. 'Space Madness'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time Traveling Space Buddha! Back to 2015, part deux!
> 
> This one's a long one because I let myself get out of hand. It's also where you're going to see things start diverging from the series canon. Forgive me for my typos, started typing this one, got it all out and only didn't minimal grammar/spell checking because I need to get to sleep for work tomorrow! Oof! 
> 
> Thank you so much for the kudos/comments/love!! Please feel free to let me know your thoughts if you feel so inclined! (No pressure!!) I hope you all have a lovely week!! :0)

**_2015 – Round 2_ **

“I’m not saying we _shouldn’t_ go and bring him home!” Daisy looked at the faces around her as they registered various facial expressions in reaction to Daisy’s interjection during a mission plan briefing to say she didn’t think Jemma should go back through any kind of portal to retrieve Will, including the utterly betrayed expression that was plastered on Jemma’s face. “I’m just saying-,” 

“I thought you were on board with this?” Fitz frowned at Daisy. 

“Let her finish,” Bobbi put her hand up to stop Fitz, who was red in the face and looked like he wanted to leap across the briefing table and pummel Daisy. 

“No! There’s nothing – she,” Fitz turned his angry gaze from Bobbi to Daisy. “You help come up with this plan!” He shouted. “Why would you pretend to be in support of bringing the man back if-,” 

“I _am_ in support of it!” Daisy snapped. 

“Everyone take a breath and calm down-,” Coulson started to say. 

“Fitz, let’s hear her out,” Mack spoke up. “You have a point, she helped make the plan, so maybe she has something to contribute about why she thinks some part of it is flawed?” He reasoned. 

“We don’t have _time_ for this!” Fitz swung a fist down at the table. “We do this or we don’t get another chance for _months_!”

“Oh for fucks sake, man – we know that, but you’re the one delaying it!” Hunter pointed out. 

May and Coulson observed the chaos erupting around the table. Jemma remained quiet, unsure what had caused Daisy to change from her previous insistence that she would help with anything Jemma needed to get Will back to Earth safely. She couldn’t stop staring across the table at Daisy, who seemed very upset that everyone was taking her withdraw of support as a withdraw of support.

“We have the plan, let’s get going and stop fighting about this,” Fitz snapped. He glared across the table at Daisy. 

“Fitz, I want to hear what Daisy has to say,” Coulson finally spoke. 

“Of course you do,” Fitz murmured. Jemma put her hands on his forearm and gave it a squeeze. She could always count on him to be in her corner, even when after she had rejected him, even after she disappeared after reversing her rejection and…even after she had told him about Will. He calmed down somewhat once Jemma had touched him, but it was clear he was still angry. 

“I’m not saying this plan won’t work, it will,” Daisy said. “And I’m not saying we shouldn’t go and get Will to bring him home,” She turned her eyes to Jemma’s when she said it. 

“What are you saying, Daisy?” Coulson prodded. 

Daisy tore her eyes away from Jemma’s and looked down the table at Coulson. “I’m saying Jemma shouldn’t be on the extraction team.”

“ _WHAT_?” Multiple people said it at once, but Jemma’s was the only voice Daisy heard among them. 

“Are you mental?” Fitz asked. “She knows the terrain, the gravitational changes, she’s familiar to him – how could you even consider that??” 

“I have to admit, Fitz has a point, Daisy,” Bobbi said.

“It’s not like she’ll be going there alone,” Hunter pointed out. 

“He should already know we’re coming anyway, after we got that message through when we only had the ninety second window to send him a message with the coordinates and date.” Mack countered. 

“Why?” Jemma finally spoke. Her gaze was locked on Daisy’s and there were tears welling in her eyes, confusion etched across her features. 

Daisy cleared her throat and blinked. “You’re still recovering from the first time. You’re desperate to reach him – and I…I totally get that,” she said as she watched her friend’s face and tried to keep her own emotions in check. “We’ll be trackable on the other side. With the new machine Fitz and Mack rigged up, we’ll have enough time to get through and get back, even if things _don’t_ go quite according to plan. There’s no need for you to put yourself in danger…” she frowned. “In your weakened state,” she added as an afterthought.

Fitz glared at Daisy again. “You think making it out like some big sacrifice will make her share your feelings, but it won’t,” He said before Jemma could reply. All chatter around at table fell silent. 

Jemma blinked and finally tore her eyes away from Daisy and looked over at Fitz. “What?” She asked on a startled exhale. Daisy just stared at Fitz, momentarily frozen. 

“Admit it,” Fitz said. “It’s what you think will happen, isn’t it? She’ll see what your real feelings are when you make the sacrifice to bring him home. That’s the only reason you pretended to be behind the plan to begin with, isn’t it?” 

“Whoa, Fitz-,” Bobbi started to say. 

Daisy reached into one of the pockets of her utility pouches. She pulled out the closed compass that had a mirror in its lid and flipped it open before tossing it across the table to Fitz, who caught it. When he looked into it, Daisy ground her teeth together. “I think that’s the person you meant to give that monologue to.” She bit out. 

Daisy’s gaze avoided Jemma’s and turned down the table to Coulson’s. “The plan you have is solid. I designed it that way on purpose and thought of everything I can. I won’t be party to putting her at risk by throwing her back through there in the PTSD riddled state we’ve all watched her deal with for weeks. It’s dangerous and who knows what will happen to her system, shocking it back to the planet’s changes after having to adjust back and forth?” she said. “That’s what I had to say.” She turned without bothering to wipe her cheek off as a tear spilled down it. 

Mack and hunter were both staring at Fitz with crossed arms and stern frowns. Bobbi had a thoughtful frown on her face and Jemma was staring after Daisy’s retreating form as Fitz’s comments echoed in her mind. 

“Okay,” Coulson said after a tense inhale of air and an awkward moment of silence among the group. “May, how long until we land?” He asked. 

“Three hours,” May answered. 

Coulson nodded. “Get your heads together, suit up and be ready. We know, for the most part, what we’re getting into here, but we should still be prepared for anything.” He paused and looked at the others. “Dismissed,” He said before glancing at May and then heading for his office. May nodded and finished going over some specs with Bobbi and Mack. 

Fitz tossed Daisy’s compass to the table, closed and turned to Jemma, who was still staring after Daisy’s retreat. “Simmons, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-,”

Jemma shook her head. “It’s alright,” she lied, her tone distant. She clenched her eyes and looked over at Fitz with a forced smile. “Thank you for always taking my side,” she gave his arm a small squeeze. 

Fitz gave her a small smile. “Not even a question,” He said. “I’m going to go and…just…get,”

“Ready, yes,” Jemma nodded. “Me too. Thank you again,” She said. Fitz turned to leave and Bobbi glanced toward Jemma out of the corner of her eyes and spotted her lingering, waiting until she thought no one was looking to grab Daisy’s compass and pocket it before leaving the room.

\----

“Ain’t love grand?” Hunter’s voice broke Daisy’s train of thought as she went about outfitting herself in the armory. 

Daisy ignored him. She loaded her night-night gun and added some extra magazines to her holster just to be safe. She found some of the new arm/wrist guards Fitz had been working on, they covered her hands from knuckles to elbow and were meant to protect and stabilize her wrists and elbows turning hand to hand combat while also providing protection from a handful of weapons and they were extremely lightweight. She slipped them on over the fingerless arm sleeves of her suit and flexed her fingers. They would do. She went about the armory, stocking up on expect-the-unexpected weapons, loading them into strategically places pouches and such about her belt and holster. 

“I just wanted to check on you, yeah? Make sure you’re alright – head still in the game and what not-,”

Daisy cut Hunter off. “I’m fine.” She said. “Leave it.” 

Lance watched her. He knew she wasn’t fine. Bobbi had sent him to check on her since she knew Daisy’s reaction to her would be more volatile since she had been working a lot with Fitz in the last few months. “Aw, c’mon, Shaky,” he said as he walked closer to her. “Fitz kind of outed you back there – for the record, don’t know why you’ve been keeping that secret. I mean it was fairly obvious to a number of us that there was something-,” 

“Hunter…if you want to keep me from using my powers on your nut sack until it explodes, you’re gonna have to stop talking right now,” Daisy sighed. “I need to finish preparing, so either stock up and change the subject…or get out of arm’s reach of me,” She ground out, feeling guilty almost immediately for her reaction. For his part, Hunter just put his hands up and back away and went to search for his own weapons stock. 

\----

“How long now?” Jemma asked for the thirteenth time in the last ten minutes. She was standing flanked by Bobbi and May. Lance and Fitz were lined up beside them, all geared up and ready to go. They all had com devices in their ears that Fitz and Jemma had designed to ensure they would work at least among the close circuit of the team while there. Each had weapons locked, loaded and ready to go. Bobbi twirled her batons every so often as they waited. 

“Two minutes and fifteen seconds,” Coulson answered her as he had every time she asked. He and Mack would be staying behind to keep the portal open and keep their communication channels running properly. 

Jemma shifted nervously on her feet and chewed her bottom lip. Bobbi glanced over at her and then turned to look at her. “We’re going to get him back, Simmons,” she gave her a reassuring smile. Jemma looked up at Bobbi. She forced an anxious smile and nodded but all she the thought that kept bothering her just then was that she didn’t know where Daisy was and if she was okay. Hunter had said he had seen her gearing up but no one had seen her since then.

In fact, it wasn’t until Coulson was in the middle of his twenty-second countdown that Daisy had appeared and slipped into the room and stepped in line between Jemma and Bobbi and had wordlessly slipped her hand into Jemma’s. Jemma’s eyes had welled again as she looked over at Daisy, who was staring ahead at the portal and exhaling a nervous breath. Jemma silently squeezed Daisy’s hand tightly. She understood Daisy was trying to protect her, but her heart swelled at the idea that Daisy was right there with her even though she didn’t like this idea of Jemma, herself, going back. 

When the portal opened, Daisy and Jemma were the first through. They landed and Jemma landed on her knees, senses immediately overrun by déjà vu and tightening. Daisy reached for her and pulled her up and wrapped an arm around her waist until she was steady. “Okay?” she asked as the others started to filter through. Fitz, Bobbi, Lance, even May, all of them were stunned, looking around, taking instrument readings, commenting on the planet. Daisy was focused on Jemma and their surroundings. 

Jemma looked around them, startled a moment that they weren’t in the area she had originally appeared. She looked around, stunned a moment. 

“Simmons, I think we landed off course,” Bobbi said, stepping over to them. “I think we’re here,” She looked around a few more times and then pointed to the spot on the map.

Jemma’s eyes widened. She stood up straighter and grabbed the map from Bobbi’s hands. “No,” she breathed, turning around and around as she lined things up in her head. “No, no, no,” She whispered to herself. 

“Simmons,” May said calmly as she watched. 

“Simmons, it’s okay, we’re only a few kilometers off according to Mack,” Fitz said after Mack had confirmed it for them. “We just have to head-,” 

Jemma seemed to be panicking and Daisy had known it would happen. How could it not? She had been captive on this planet for six months. Daisy approached Jemma slowly, ignoring Fitz. There was something more to this than just flashing back to something. She had her hands up, palms out as she approached Jemma slowly. “Jem,” she said softly. “I promise, we won’t let you get stuck here again,” She said gently. “We’re gonna find Will and bring him back…just…tell me what’s up, okay?” When Jemma finally looked at her, Daisy gently grabbed Jemma’s upper arms so that she’d be able to hold on her in case she tried to bolt. 

Jemma’s eyes widened after looking past Daisy’s shoulder. “….You have to get out of here,” She said as what little color Daisy could see in her face drained out. “Go back through. Will…he’ll find us-,” She dug around in the bag at her hip and pulled a flare gun out, it forced Daisy to let go of one of her arms as Jemma aimed it and shot it into the air. “Go back!” She ordered. 

“Coulson, looks like there’s a storm coming,” May said. 

“I see it. Looked pretty large. Anywhere to shelter?” Coulson asked. 

“Not worth it, we’re a few kilometers off target,” Bobbi said. “Simmons sent up a flare. By the time we start heading to the rendezvous point, he should meet us halfway,” She reasoned. 

Daisy was watching Jemma. She was shaking. “Jem,” She said her name firmly. “Tell me what’s going on.” 

“It’s not a storm! This is dangerous territory, you have to get out of here – go back through and close the portal!” She pushed Daisy toward the portal they had come through. Daisy’s grip on Jemma’s arm tightened.

“This is a mission and I’m not going anywhere until we get Will – least of all to leave you behind!” Daisy snapped. 

Jemma swung her hand and the butt of the flare gun hit Daisy squared in the jaw. She let go of Jemma with a startled shout of surprise and fell back.

“SIMMONS WAIT!” Bobbi shouted. 

“Simmons!” Fitz called out. 

Daisy jumped to her feet and chased after Jemma, calling out for her. “Coulson, May, she said it’s not a storm. She thinks this is a dangerous place,” she said between huffs of air as she ran. “May, Fitz, Hunter, Bobbi, guard the portal. I’ll bring Jem and Will back. If you run into trouble, close it-,” 

“We’re not-,” 

“Leaving us behind, yeah, I know the shtick,” Daisy cut May off but kept running, chasing after Jemma.

\---

“Let her go!” Daisy shouted at the man holding Jemma. It looked like it was Will, the way Jemma had described him but Daisy had just watched the man tackled Jemma mid-run and now he was holding her, an arm wrapped over her shoulder and his hand wrung tight around Jemma’s neck. There was a gun pressed to Jemma’s temple. Daisy had her hands up as if holding them in front of her in surrender, or in some way to stop him from hurting Jemma. He laughed. “We came here to get you – we landed of course. We need to get back before the storm-,”

The man, Will, let out a maniacal laugh as her threw his head back. “It’s not a storm!” He laughed. “I told you it wasn’t a storm, why didn’t you listen to me?” He asked, turning his lips to Jemma’s ear as he said it. 

Jemma seemed completely lost. There were tears in her eyes as her hands held onto Willa’s forearm, she choked a time or two when he squeezed her neck in anger. “W-Will!” she gasped as her tears started to fall. “You’re alive…” The shock of being back and being close to him was almost as strong as her confusion. 

“I lasted fourteen years without you,” He gripped her neck. “I knew you’d find away back,” He looked at Daisy. “Didn’t know you’d bring one of _them_ with you,” He sneered as he looked at Daisy. 

“W-What?” Jemma asked just before she gasped at the way Will squeezed her throat again. 

“They’re the reason this place exists!” He screamed, aiming the gun at Daisy to stop her from stepping closer. Daisy stopped and kept her hands up. She watched Will carefully and glanced at Jemma a few times when she could. 

“Will…listen…we have a time limit here. We need-,” 

“SHUT UP!” Will gripped Jemma’s throat, which caused Jemma to choke. 

“Look!” Daisy snapped. “If you want to stay here and eat alien plants and live off some kind of geothermal heat with no sunlight for twenty more fucking years because you’re suffering from some kind of ‘Space Madness,’ that’s your fucking prerogative, Buzz Lightyear,” She said, stepping closer, but still a good fifteen feet out of reach. “But you’re going to let Jemma go, and you’re going to do it before I get to the cunt of three-,” 

Jemma let go of Will’s arm with one hand and swung her elbow back into Will’s ribs. Startled, his hand released her neck as he listed forward. “Gun’s empty!” Jemma shouted once she had gulped in a mouthful of air. She dropped herself to her knees and covered her head. Daisy pushed her hands forward as Will lunged for Jemma again, sending the man flying a few feet in the air and landing a safe distance away. Daisy rushed forward and stood so she was positioned between Will and Jemma, she drew her gun from its holster and aimed it. 

“Don’t make me shoot this at you, man,” Daisy pled. “You look like a hefty boy and carrying you with this gravity field was not in my plan,” The gun was in both hands, her elbows were locked and braced and she had his chest lined up in view. Will eyed her. He spotted Jemma behind Daisy, still kneeling, crying and confused. 

“Don’t even consider it,” Daisy sneered. “I’ll carry her home before I bother gathering you,” She said through gritted teeth. 

“Daisy – what’s your status?” May asked, having heard all the commotion off and on through the windy storm. 

“Will’s having an episode,” Daisy replied without taking her eyes off the man. It was clear he had finally full snapped.

“An episode?” May asked. 

“Space madness, May,” Daisy replied. “Hunter, Bobbi, gonna need your help lugging this guy back. Jem’s a little roughed up, she’s gonna need help.” Daisy replied. 

“Daisy,” Jem plead. “Something’s wrong, please don’t-,” 

“I won’t hurt him, Jem, but we need to get out of here,” She knew they were on the edge of the storm, but it would reach them any minute and they still had to make it back. 

Will lunged as if he wanted to make a leap for Jemma but Daisy squeezed the trigger three times without a second thought. Will collapsed to the ground as the rounds knocked him out as Jemma cried out. Daisy put her gun back in its holster. “He’s out,” she told Jemma, who rushed to Will’s side. “Are you alright?” Daisy asked her. Jemma was shaking. “Jem, look at me,” Daisy put her hands on either side of Jemma’s face. “Can you walk so I can grab him?” She asked. Still trembling, Jemma nodded quickly. 

“Okay, let’s go,” Daisy nodded. Daisy pulled a long paracord bracelet off from where it was hooked on her belt. She unwound the cord and wrapped it under Will’s torso and pulled it around his underarms before tying it off and pulling it up and over her shoulders. She gripped it tightly and started pulling the heavy body weight of Will behind her in the sand, keeping a firm eye on Jemma to make sure she was making the trek okay.

“We’re almost there, Jem,” Daisy assured. “Stay with me,” She said, not wanting to lose Jemma on a mental scale. If it was between getting Jem back through the portal and dragging the unconscious tool bag through it...there was just no question of who she would choose. Jemma sniffled and nodded, walking close to Daisy as they began to fight against the wind of the storm. 

\----

“How long’s it been?” May asked. 

“One hour and thirty-five minutes,” Coulson replied. 

“How long have we got left?” May asked. She eyed Fitz, who was pacing in front of the portal. The storm was gone. Bobbi and Hunter had returned with Will, who was now locked in one of the inhuman transfer pods, unconscious. May hadn’t let Hunter or Bobbi return through the portal. Fitz refused to cross back through. They had lost Daisy and Jemma on their earpiece coms shortly after Bobbi and Hunter had claimed Will. 

“Hour, max before the juice runs out,” Mack answered her. 

“And after that?” Bobbi’s voice came over the coms. 

“I’m not leaving,” Fitz muttered. The only reason he hadn’t run off to find Jemma and Daisy was because May wouldn’t let him. She had physically restrained him three different times when he tried to go. May already knew she’d have to use an icer on him if it came down to it. 

“And then we wait another eight months to come back,” Coulson answered. 

\----  
“Daisy, I’m sorry, I-,” 

“We have to move, Jem,” Daisy grimaced as Jemma finished packing the sleeve of her jacket into a wound on Daisy’s side so that her tactical uniform would hold it in place to put pressure on the bleeding. “We have to try and get the coms to pick up the signal again, see if the portal’s still open. Jemma was quiet. She nodded but didn’t move. 

Whatever was in that storm, it was chasing after them. At first, Daisy thought it was chasing her, after what Will had said. When she realized it was actually after Jemma, Daisy had gotten into the crossfire, so to speak, and had received a scepter to the side. It hurt like hell. It had chased them away from the portal and Daisy had started to circle them back. They had only stopped to make a temporary bandage. 

“Any idea how far we are?” Daisy asked as Jemma surveyed their surroundings for a moment. Jemma closed her eyes a moment and Daisy noticed her hands trembling as they held the map. “Hey,” She reached out and put her hand on Jemma’s shoulder. “We’re gonna get back, okay? I promise I’m not going to let you get stuck here again.” She stepped closer. “Bobbi and Hunter probably already made it back with Will. All they’ll be waiting for now is us. So...let’s get you and him home, right?” 

Jemma’s eyes were filled when she turned toward Daisy. She sniffled and nodded but when she spoke, Daisy wasn’t expecting the question that came out. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

Daisy blinked. “...Tell you what?” 

Jemma frowned “How you felt,” She said. “After the times that we were-,” 

“Jem,” Daisy shook her head. “Now’s not the time, okay? I promise, when we get back and get cleaned up, we’ll talk about anything and everything, but right now-,” 

“Run,” Jemma said on an exhale. 

Daisy turned to follow her gaze and saw the edges of the storm, only its occupant was actually running ahead of it, something Jemma had never seen it do in all the time she had been on the planet. Jemma looked at the map and then started running, knowing Daisy would follow. 

Daisy followed, keeping pace with Jemma and checking on how close the monster - she had no idea what else to call it - was or how fast it was gaining on them. “ _Shit_!” She said at one point when she glanced back to find he had disappeared. They stopped and looked around but couldn’t seem to locate the being hunting them. “Keep going, we need to move,” Daisy decided. Jemma turned to run, they made it just to the edge of the valley they were in when Daisy suddenly sprinted an extra few feet and took a flying dive at Jemma. They rolled down an embankment and Daisy did her best to hold onto Jemma’s head and brace with her arms and elbows as they rolled to keep her from hitting her head. 

When they landed, both of them groaned and coughed. Daisy had landed under Jemma, who was looking down at her in concern. “You’re bleeding,” Jemma said. She reached out to gingerly touch an area near Daisy’s temple. Above her, past her shoulder, Daisy saw a blur of motion. She rolled them over to cover Jemma and lifted her arm and shoulder, turning her hand up and pushing as if against an invisible barrier. The thing hunting Jemma landed against the gray barrier waves and bounced off. Daisy’s face was taut as she watched him, bracing her hand and arm out to bring up another set of waves, either to throw the beast/man/alien/whatever, away and deflect his attempts to swing his weapon at them. 

Jemma’s eyes were wide. She jumped, startled, in fear with every jolt Daisy’s body took thanks to the blows against the barrier. It was a display of Daisy’s power she had never seen and from the look on Daisy’s face, she hadn’t been aware she could do it until that moment and she also didn’t seem so sure she could keep it up. 

“Jem - the gun!” Daisy called out. She grunted as she moved to a position where she had one knee on the ground and one foot on the ground, crouched low and not moving from Jemma’s side. She threw both hands out and sent the attacker soaring many yards away. 

Jemma grabbed the gun from the holster on Daisy’s leg and flipped off the safety. Just as it was running after them again, Jemma pulled the trigger twice, colliding with it’s chest. The alien let out a beastly roar and immediately vanished. “ _Where did he go?_ ” Jemma gasped. 

Daisy was panting, each breath labored. “Let’s not wait around to find out,” She said. She took the gun back and holstered it. “C’mon,” she said before they both started running again. 

“Wait, did you hear that?” Fitz asked. 

“Daisy?” Bobbi asked, “Simmons? Are you there?” 

“Bobbi?” Daisy’s voice came crackling over the radio. 

“It’s them!” Bobbi shouted. “Daisy, where are you?” 

“We’re….” The coms were going in and out. “...Away…-eing chased...alien...strong fucker. He’s….ter Jemma.” Daisy’s message came back garbled 

“Their trackers are back! They’re in the perimeter!” Fitz shouted. 

“What does that mean, Fitz? How close are they?” May asked. 

“They’re….” Fitz was quiet. 

Hunter came through the portal. “Put me in coach,” He said to May. “I’m ready to play,” He swung his head back and forth to crack his neck and loosen it up. His weapons were down to a minimum and he hopped on his toes a few times. 

“Seven kilometers away,” Fitz shouted, pointing in a different direction than they had left in to begin with. 

“May?” Coulson asked. 

“...It’s trying to tire them out,” May murmured. 

“Guys,” Fitz said. 

“I’m on it,” Hunter took off running. 

“Hunter, wait!” May shouted. 

“There’s a mountain range!” Fitz called over the coms. “Hunter, you’re both heading right for it. Daisy! Jemma! You have to turn East! NOW!” 

Daisy managed to hear what Fitz said but it was too late for them to turn east. The alien warrior had returned and they could only go forward. Cliff, there was a cliff. _shit, fuck damn it all to hell!_ “Jem, stop!” Daisy shouted but it was too late. As the storm fog cleared, Jemma was moving too fast to fully stop. She skidded but her feet slid over the edge. She fell and it the edge of the cliff with her hip and scrambled to grab at the dirt and sand beneath her to no avail. 

Daisy sprinted as fast as she could. She dropped to her knees and slid as if she were sliding into home plate when the catcher already had the ball. Her left hand grabbed onto Jemma’s forearm and clamped tight around it as Jemma’s arm gripped onto the armor plating around her arm. She balled her right fist and used her thumb to click one of the buttons Fitz had installed as a defensive improvement - four curved and ruthlessly sharpened adamantium spikes flicked out on the outside of her arm along the gauntlet armor. As Jemma’s weight started to pull her sliding right over the edge of the cliff side, Daisy jammed her fist and arm down into the bedrock of the cliffside. With a heavy jolt and a wail of pain from Daisy, their fall stopped. Daisy had felt something in her shoulder pop as they swung, dangling from the nauseatingly tall drop. 

Daisy groaned. The gravity here was stronger than Earth. She could feel that her right arm was separated. Her fingers couldn’t even hold the fist shape any longer. The only reason they weren’t dead was because of the deeply dug in spikes. 

“Daisy! Simmons!” Coulson called. “Are you okay?” 

“Daisy,” Jemma’s trembling voice filtered up to Daisy. She was holding onto Jemma’s arm so tightly, her nails had dug into the skin below her jacket and wer drawing small beads of blood.

Daisy breathed heavily, trying to find a balance between pain and energy to pull Jemma up somehow. She couldn’t force words out at the moment. 

“Daisy,” Jemma spoke again. Daisy turned her head down to look at Jemma. She was sweating and her teeth were ground tight together. “Daisy you can’t….you have to-,” 

“Don’t even…” Daisy panted, huffing and puffing hard against the weight, threatening to dislocate her other shoulder. “Think ‘bout it, Jem!” 

“We can’t both-,” 

“No!” Daisy shouted. “Coulson - could use some help,” She said through labored breaths. 

“What’s the sitrep?” Coulson asked. 

“Hunter, you’re four kilometers out.” Fitz said. 

“We’re hanging from a… _very_...steep ravine,” Jemma explained to Coulson. “Daisy’s injured.”

“Picking up the pace, love, hold tight,” Lance replied. 

“Daisy,” Jemma said calmly. “Daisy, you have to, or we’ll both-,” 

Daisy inhaled a deep breath, she let out a pained groan and used her good arm, the one holding Jemma, to lift her just high enough that she could wrap her legs around Jemma’s waist. She wrapped her legs and then crossed them on ankle over the other to relieve some of the weight from her good arm. “Don’t you dare...tell me to let you...die,” Daisy replied. 

Bobbi came through the portal when Lance was only a kilometer away from the girls. She raced out, on top of a motorbike from one of the back corners of the bus, two groupings of cable loaded diagonally across her forming an X-shape of roping along her torso. “Which way?” She asked Fitz. Fitz pointed her and she nodded, taking off again, ski goggles covering her eyes to keep the dirt and debris out as she raced. “Make sure you let me know when I’m close to the edge.” She told Fitz over the coms. 

Fitz kept a running tally for both Bobbi and Lance. Lance skidded to a stop at the top of the cliff face. “Bullocks,” He exhaled in disbelief when he looked down over the edge. 

“Hunter,” Daisy gasped. 

Hunter’s eyes landed on her. He could see the beads of sweat on her red face. Her ar was definitely out of its socket and he could see blood around the shoulder of her sleeve. He immediately dropped onto his stomach and used the paracord rope he had to lean down, dangerously far, over the cliff’s edge, so that he could feed the rope around her torso and underarms. He tied off a slipknot and tightened it around her torso and shoulders and wrapped it multiple times around her arm before turning and bracing himself, his feet dug in and his arms wrapped up in the remainder of the cord. “Sit tight, Bob’s on the way with some rope - be here any second. 

“Hunter, how bad is it?” Coulson asked. 

“Daisy’s about to pass out,” Lance answered. “Spikes on her gauntlet are holding them in place but if she loses consciousness, Simmons…” 

_Will fall to her death,_ Daisy thought. “Not gonna happen,” Daisy ground out through her tightly gritted teeth. 

“You’re half a kilometer out, Bobbi,” Fitz said. 

Bobbi stopped just shy of Hunter, kicking up some sand. She jumped off the bike, pulled the rope free and dropped it next to Hunter. She had just enough time to pull her batons free from their holsters along her back before the alien hunter attacked. 

“Bobbi!” Hunter called out. He didn’t want to let go of the cords, but the battle that was going on behind him was intense. Bobbi sustained a good number of hits. 

“Jem,” Daisy grunted. Jemma looked up at her. “Gun,” She nodded toward the cliff. “Throw it up there,” She grunted. 

Jemma nodded. Her shuffling caused Daisy a few uncontrollable wails and grunts of pain. Jemma used only one hand. She reeled back and heaved the gun as hard as she could up and over the cliff face and then wrapped her arm around Daisy’s leg again. “Daisy,” there were tears in her eyes as she saw the true strain on Daisy this was physically taking. 

“We’re almost there, Jem,” Daisy grunted through labored breaths. “Stay with me,” She repeated her earlier comments. 

Hunter reached a hand free and grabbed the gun. He managed to get off three shots into the attacker, which made him let out the blood curdling wail and disappear again like it had before. Bobbi threw herself down on the cliff and immediately started tying up a makeshift hardness. She tied one end to herself and lowered the other down.  
Jemma tried to tie it around Daisy, but Daisy stopped her. “No!” She shook her head. “Hunter’s got me,” She lied. “You,” She nodded. Jemma managed to get her arm and shoulder through the loop, She and Daisy had to carefully juggle grips until the rope was situated. “She’s on it! Pull her up!” Daisy called. 

Bobbi forced herself up to her feet, bracing the rope and harness. She backed slowly away from the cliff face, pulling Jemma’s weight with it. Daisy unlocked her legs’ death grip around Jemma but didn’t let go of her hand as the rope pulled her higher. Jemma wrapped her arms and started to wrap her legs around Daisy but Daisy shook her head. “Don’t...it’s too much weight to pull...at once,” She shook her head. 

When Jemma was safely on top of the cliff, all three of them worked on getting Daisy pulled up. By the time they pulled her up, she was unconscious and breathing shallow gasps of air. “Get her on the bike and get out of here,” Hunter said. 

Without Daisy to protest, Bobbi agreed. Hunter helped her get Daisy on the bike in front of her and beared down on the handlebars, racing to get back. Hunter wrapped an arm around Jemma’s waist and pulled her arm over his shoulder, helping her limp along with a twisted knee, moving them at the quickest pace he could. 

“Fitz! Get on the other side it’s coming!” Bobbi said. “May, I’m going to drop Daisy with you and go get Simmons and Hunter,” Bobbi said. 

Coulson came through the portal. He dragged and shoved Fitz through it. On the other side, Mack held Fitz from racing back through. Bobbi made it to May and May scooped Daisy up from the bike. When she turned, Coulson was there. He grabbed Daisy and went back through the portal, leaving May to stand guard as Bobbi went to grab Jemma and Lance. It was rough going, getting all three of them on the bike and racing back to the portal. By the time they got there, it was fluctuating since the power was draining. Bobbi drove the bike and all three of them through it and May dove through before it closed completely.  
“She’s unresponsive, get her to the med bay, now!” Coulson was saying of Daisy. Mack took Daisy from Coulson and ran. Bobbi and Fitz were close on her heels. “May, get us airborne.” 

May was already running for the cockpit. Hunter helped Jemma hobble after the other to follow Daisy, wanting to help make sure she was alright. Jemma was instantly reminded of when Daisy had been shot, when she was still new to the team, so Shield in general. She was reduced to sobs, knowing this time it truly was her fault that Daisy was in this position once more, even if bullets hadn’t been involved.


	5. Lil Monkey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Warning:** More violence, more blood, tears and possibly CPR. 
> 
> Thank you for the love and feedback! Always helpful to know your thoughts! 
> 
> There are probably some typos in this I'll need to fix later but you're getting this update from my mobile and that makes spell/grammar checking harder!! Mea culpa!! 
> 
> <3

Everyone was moving. Plans, orders, all manner of things were being shouted over communication channels, in the room. Jemma was on the floor against the leg of the desk with her knees pulled up, nearly catatonic. The train hit them. The train hit them and the line went dead. They were dead. She had lost her family. They had been laughing one moment and now they were gone. Jemma couldn’t breathe. There was no logical reason for it, but she struggled to breathe as she sat there, eyes wide, almost rocking a bit, nearly catatonic. Everything around her sounded muffled. 

“What’s that?” Bobbi asked, still rushing around the consoles back and forth with Fitz as they coordinated with law enforcement agencies and the extraction teams.

Fitz looked down at Bobbi’s phone screen after she pulled it up with a message and his eyes widened as he raced to his own phone to look at the screen. “It’s the monkey…it’s the - They’re alive…” He gasped and then let out a laugh. “They’re alive!” He ran to the communication buttons and hit the buttons to connect to the cockpit. “Mack! New coordinates!” He rambled off sets of numbers. “Get us as close as you possibly can! They’re alive!” 

“What? Fitz! How do you-,” Bobbi started to ask. 

Fitz grabbed her and swung her around – no small feat for a guy considering Bobbi’s height and her muscle mass. “THEY’RE ALIVE!” He laughed and let go of her.

Jemma was still stuck in slow motion. Her mind was in the process of trying to completely shut down from the pain – physical on top of the emotional – that listening to her wife and daughter die caused. She barely registered Fitz there as he knelt down in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Simmons – Jemma! They’re alive!” He laughed – actually laughed! – And moved his hands to the sides of her face to make her look at him. “Jemma!” He shouted her name. Jemma blinked and looked up at him, fighting through the foggy haze that seemed to be surrounding her. “ _they’re alive!_ ” He reached onto the table for Jemma’s cell phone and pulled up the message. It was addressed as being from _’Lil Monkey’_ and had an icon picture of Lily making a silly face that immediately brought the tears welling in Jemma’s eyes crashing down in streaks along her cheeks. “It’s the monkey – the necklace!” Fitz said as Jemma snatched the phone out of his hands. “Jem, they’re alive-,” He said. 

Jemma stared at the phone. Bobbi frowned. “Fitz, we don’t know-,” 

“I _do_ know!” Fitz said as he moved to stand up. “I created that necklace and it cannot activate itself. It has to be activated and I showed Lily how to do it myself,” He said. 

“Fitz,” Bobbi said, glancing down at Jemma, who was still struggling to process everything. She didn’t want to give Jemma sudden false hope, not after what they had heard over the speakerphone. There was also the possibility that Lily was alive and Daisy wasn’t, or vice versa. 

Moments later, Jemma was on her feet and racing out of the communications room. Fitz wanted to chase her but he and Bobbi needed to finish their tactical coordination so Bobbi stopped him. Jemma rounded into the armory and found May there. May was just looking down at the message when Jemma entered and she looked over at the scientist. “I’m going with you to get them.” Jemma said. May paused only for a moment as she surveyed Jemma’s appearance. The tears had been wiped away. Her jaw was set. Her breathing was still labored and May recognized the desperation in Jemma’s eyes. Still, she gave Jemma only a solitary nod and began to help her gets suited for heading into a firefight.

\----

The closest Mack could get them to the coordinates Fitz had given him was the roadway that Daisy would have taken if she had made it past the railroad tracks before they had been attacked. From the way Daisy had gone running through the woods, the spot Mack took them down to was about a kilometer straight into the woods from where they were at. Jemma was out of the bus, jumping to the ground before they had fully touched down and the rear bay door of the bus had even fully opened. May and Bobbi were close behind them. Lance and Fitz followed, making their way through the woods, doing their best not to be spotted by the enemies on their handheld trackers. Jemma followed the beacon on the handheld that she had, running over trunks and tree branches, moving faster than she had ever moved before in her life. Even Bobbi was struggling to keep up.

“Never seen her move so fast,” Bobbi huffed as she and May rushed to keep up. May ran with her hands wrapped around the handle of a gun, never pausing in strides to shoot anyone approaching that wasn’t a friendly target.

In a small clearing that was just a few hundred yards from the blinking beacon from the monkey necklace, a group of five enemy combatants managed to cut Bobbi and May off. One May took two out with the last of her bullets and dropped her gun. Bobbi already had her batons out and was ready to go. Jemma dashed ahead, having made it through the clearing before they were spotted. 

“SIMMONS, WAIT!” Bobbi shouted, but there was no time, she and May were locked in a battle that drew more offensive attacks from the woods around them. Hunter and Fitz made it to them and managed to use icers to take out a number of them. 

Jemma couldn’t stop. She just couldn’t. Moments after Bobbi shouted for her, she heard Lily, wailing and crying out for Daisy. Panic overtook any and all logical thought processes she had left and she surged forward. She knew the others would catch up to her. “Lily!” She shouted, wanting her daughter to know that she was coming, wanting Daisy to know though she didn’t know if Daisy was even with Lily. She had to be right? Daisy would never leave Lily behind by herself. It would have been a last resort and one that Daisy wouldn’t have taken knowing how surrounded they were…unless…

Jemma found herself running almost directly for a large oak tree as she followed the beacon. Lily’s cries were louder. “Lily!” Jemma called again. She could see the edges of the violet sphere of Lily’s protective bubble when she was about ten feet away and, just a few feet away from what looked like a nest of thicket and bramble, the wind was completely knocked out of Jemma. She was on the ground and gasping for air in the next moment with a heavy weight on top of her. The tracker landed in the leaves and grass to her left and Lily shrieked as she spied what was happening past Daisy’s shoulder and through the breaks in the brush covering the entrance to the tree. 

Jemma felt hands around her neck. It meant she had moments, seconds at most, to do something or she risked losing motor function and falling unconscious. She couldn’t risk that with Lily so close – Fitz was right! Lily was alive! Jemma’s hand let go of the wrists and forearms she was struggling against and groped down her side, blindly reaching for a knife that May had attached to her hip. Her pulse raced as she tried to focus on staying alive so she could get to her daughter. 

“I was hoping it would be you.” The gravel-gritty voice instantly caused Jemma to freeze just as her hand gripped around the handle of the knife at her side. Her eyes were wide as the man leaned up so he could stare down at her and get a good view of the terror on her face. He sneered and chuckled when he saw the paralyzing fear that had gripped Jemma. He leaned down closer to her, bringing his scar mangled face closer. “You think this is what it felt like for Fitz, when he drowned?” Ward asked. 

Jemma’s teeth ground together. She had never kept her promise of murdering the next time she saw him from so many years ago. She had tried – had genuinely attempted to do it but had failed. 

“She’s already dead,” Ward leaned closer and whispered it. “You’re too late. Not to worry, you’ll see her soon. Gonna keep the kid alive though – her powers could be useful once she’s been properly trained and broken in…” He squeezed Jemma’s neck tighter as tears rolled from her eyes. 

Letting go of Ward’s wrist with her left hand she threw the extremity at his face, curling her fingers to dig at his eyes and nose to distract him and loosen his grip. Ward let go of her neck with one hand and reeled a fist back. As soon as his torso was exposed she swung her right hand and buried the small into the middle of his torso, just between two of his ribs. It caused Ward to freeze, his body jolting as he looked down at Jemma in shock. He looked down, first at Jemma and the cold, almost dead stare on her face and then to the knife she had buried into his side. Her hand was still wrapped around the handle, even. Jemma twisted the knife, causing Ward to sputter as he slumped off of her to the ground on his side, gasping and choking.

Jemma herself was gasping to gulp down air, ignoring the burn in her chest as the oxygen started to return, the raw feeling in her throat. She pulled the knife out and swung it down again before Ward could block it. This time she stabbed it through the soft flesh just above his collarbone, knowing there was an artery there that could cause him to bleed to death. She moved back slightly and Ward reached for the handle. “Go on,” Jemma challenged in a rasp. “Pull it out,” she said through ground teeth. “Let it unplug the artery – bleed out and choke on every last liter of blood,” She practically growled. “While you do, think about my son!” She pulled the gun May had given her from its holster and waited just a few moments as Ward stared at her, trying to figure out his next plan of attack. She heard more people approaching and didn’t want to waste any more time. She locked her elbows the way Daisy had shown her so many years ago and squeezed the trigger twice – an extra icer for good measure. She was relieved to watch Ward fall limp on the ground. 

Hearing noise approaching, Jemma lifted the gun and aimed it. Bobbi was rushing through the trees. 

“Simmons!” She called out, spotting the body on the ground. 

“Down!” Jemma shouted in a gritty sounding rasp, closing one eye and aiming the gun. 

Bobbi’s eyes widened. Gripping her batons tighter, she dropped to her knees and slid along the ground, ducking back. As soon as she was out of the way, Jemma squeezed off a round that caught one of the men chasing after Bobbi in the neck. He went tumbling to the ground and the man chasing behind him tripped over him. When he landed, Jemma squeezed off two rounds into him, breathing heavy as her hands started to shake.

Bobbi slowly climbed to her feet. “Simmons,” she said in a gentle tone as she spotted the tears streaking down Jemma’s face. She approached Jemma cautiously. Lily was still crying. Jemma spun towards the tree. Before she could go to it more of the heavily armored militants began to appeared, surrounding them.

May made it to their position in time to tackle and take out one as Bobbi began to fight two of them that had gone for Jemma. Jemma turned and shot off the rest of the rounds in the gun, missing twice but knocking out two of the men closest to approaching the tree. Hunter made it to the clearing and jumped into the Fray. Fitz tried to rush through but was tackled by one of the soldiers converging on their position. They needed back up, and quick. 

It took some time – and multiple magazine reloads for some of them – before that back up arrived. Mack had rerouted all of the responding friendlies to their coordinates and soon the volley of bullets coming from the defensive side outnumbered the enemy combatants engaging them.

May was the first of the team free. She rushed to the tree and began working on the branches of underbrush blocking the entrance. It had been a smart move to climb through and keep those intact. She forced her emotions into the dark empty void within her, forcing herself not to panic at the fact that Daisy was unresponsive. “Lily,” She called the little girl’s name when she knew enough of the branches were clear that she could grab Lily if the little girl put her protective shielding down. “Lily, it’s May, sweetheart,” she tried to speak as calmly and pleasantly as she could, considering the situation they were currently in. “It’s May, I’m trying to get you, but I need you to take down your bubble, can you do that for me?” She asked, still pulling at some of the branches. 

Lily was outright sobbing by that point. She was alternating between calling out wails of, “Mama!” And trying to shake Daisy awake and calling out “Mummy!” Whenever she happened to catch a glimpse of Jemma through her tear-filled eyes. May could see that her face was streaked with tears. It was bright red from the crying and there was blood but May couldn’t tell if that was from Lily or from Daisy. 

Jemma was suddenly next to May, who pulled harder at the branches to get Daisy and Lily free. “Lily!” Jemma landed on her knees next to May. She pulled at the last few branches blocking Lily and Daisy and reached through the thick haze of violet that had blocked May from grabbing her. “I’m here, I’m here, hold on, baby, I’ve got you,” She reached in and caught Lily by her under arms, pulling her around Daisy’s body and falling back to the ground as she wrapped her arms around the little girl and held tightly onto her. 

For a long moment, all Jemma could focus on was Lily. She pulled back, immediately checking the two and a half year old over for injuries. Lily had a few scrapes but most of the blood on her wasn’t her own. She sobbed hard as Jemma’s hands stroked over her head, fingers probed along her neck and spine, searching for injuries. She pulled set Lily in her lap and pulled her jacket off immediately, wrapping it around her daughter and talking to her the whole time. “I know, I know, shhh, you’re alright, I’ve got you,” she promised as she wrapped her arms back around Lilly and cradled her in close, pressing her tight to her chest as she tried to hold back her own sobs. “You’re all right, Lily, it’s okay, baby it’s okay,” she repeated, rocking as she held onto Lily and planted kisses into her hair, losing her fight here and there against a couple of sobs. 

Fitz made it to her side and dropped to his knees, dropping the hefty medical bag he had thrown over his shoulders when they had run off the bus. “Is she hurt?” He asked. 

Bobbi finally managed to leave the fight as the reinforcements created a protective circle around them to shield them. She and May exchanged a glance and May shook her head. Daisy wasn’t breathing. Jemma spotted it as the two of them were pulled Daisy out from the hiding spot. Her limbs and head hung limp as they pulled her to a flat spot of ground. Her face was ashen aside from the multitude of blood, most of it dried by now, all over it. From what Jemma could see from her spot, Daisy’s chest was still. She wasn’t breathing or struggling to do so. 

Eyes wide, Jemma pulled Lily back as the girl protested. “It’s okay, sweetheart, I need to you to, to go with Uncle Fitz, all right? He needs to make sure you’re not hurt, all right?” She didn’t want to let her daughter go but the sight of Daisy motionless like that…She passed Lily over to Fitz, who wrapped his arms around her and held on, keeping her from turning her head by saying he was checking it since he didn’t want to chance having her see them trying to revive Daisy. 

Scrambling to her knees, Jemma made it to Daisy’s side as they were setting her down flat on the ground. Jemma immediately went to work as May and Bobbi exchanged another glance. Jemma felt no pulse on Daisy’s neck. “No, no, no, no, Daisy, please…” she turned her head and placed her ear down to Daisy’s chest but both heard nothing and felt no movement. Jemma was back to crying, thick tears sliding down her cheeks and blurring her vision as she immediately tilted Daisy’s head back, pinched her nose shut and blew two big puffs of air into her lungs, making her chest rise. She curled together, one hand on top of the other as she found the bottom of Daisy’s sternum, straightened her arms and locked her elbows to start doing compressions. Bobbi jumped right in, alternating with her doing the compressions and the rescue breaths. 

“C’mon, Daisy!” Jemma shouted, desperate and angry all at once. “You can’t leave us!” She shouted between sobs as she worked to try and revive Daisy. "Please!"


	6. Happy Xmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Forewarning:** Yarggghhhh, thar be sap, giggles, smooches and a weeeeee bit of the feels ahead!!
> 
>  
> 
> Sorry for the delay, babes! This one's nice and long to give you some extra feels before I get back into the action >.>
> 
> Hope everyone is doing well!! Hopefully will have the next chap finished tonight so I don't wind up feeling like TWD, leaving cliffhangery things unresolved for over three weeks.............!!!!!! 
> 
> <3  
> _________________

**_2015 – 3.0, now with more of that 2015 flavor!!_**  
Daisy was certain there wasn’t a single millimeter of her body that wasn’t in pain and that was despite the fact that it had been almost five days – and she had been asleep for _three and a half_ of those! It was also despite the fact that, once again, she was feeling like a weird science project as the medical staff marveled over her bloodwork while trying to figure out how her body was healing faster than it should have been. The thing she hated most about getting injured on the job wasn’t even the pain. She could deal with the pain. It always passed. It was the way she was stuck in an uncomfortable hospital bed, propped up into a seated position (she was told this was to keep her from developing pneumonia from lying prone the whole time, but she was sure it was just to make her even more uncomfortable), her right arm was in a sling and would be for a few weeks thanks to needing surgery to correct the parts of her shoulder joint that had separated from the major dislocation they had sustained. Thankfully she didn’t have to deal with any uncomfortable oxygen tubes but she did have to contend with intravenous lines, heart monitor machines, a pulse-ox monitor on her fingertip and a couple of other machines that droned steadily and drove her nuts.

As awesome as Netflix was, there was only so much streaming a person could take when they were recovering, especially when some head injuries were involved. She found herself letting her mind wander back to when she had been shot and her recovery from that. Even though Jemma had been adamant about her not leaving the bed, when she wasn’t poking Daisy to collect blood samples and when she was off duty, she had spent hours just sitting with Daisy. When Daisy had been stir crazy then, she had searched through the various books in her bunk and had laid in bed with Daisy into the night, reading to her. At first, Daisy had made little jokes about it but, in all honesty, it had been something she had come to love – it had been relaxing and comforting to have Jemma near her. She didn’t have to make jokes as if she was fine, then. She just had to listen to Jemma’s voice as she read, smiling when Jemma’s face contorted as she threw her voice for each character that spoke.

She hadn’t actually seen Jemma since she had woken up, but the signs that Jem had been in the room were there, including the book that was on the small table next to Daisy’s bed with a bookmark in it. Bobbi had said she had stumbled upon Jemma reading to her while she slept a few times, but Daisy knew without being told. With a sigh, Daisy turned the TV off and attempted to use her laptop. That endeavor was a failure since she felt too exhausted to focus on using just one hand to operate the computer. After turning it off with a sigh, she leaned over to the table next to the bed and set the laptop down on it. She rolled onto her back again with a sigh and leaned her head back against the pillows.

“Hello, Daisy,” Jemma’s voice was much softer than it normally would have been as she stood in the doorway of the room, as if she were afraid that Daisy might not actually want her there. It had been a long time since Daisy had seen Jemma act so timid around her; it was almost as disorienting as having woken up in the hospital when the last thing she remembered was dangling off of a massive cliff on an alien planet while holding onto Jemma’s arm with all of her strength.

“Hey, Jem,” She greeted with a warm smile. “You’re losing your touch – an hour ago, I got up and went to the bathroom on my own and you didn’t come in to scold meonce,” she let the jokes take over. It was the way she masked her worries. Things had to roll off her back or she never would have made it this far in life alive, right? Daisy had grown up learning how to take the punches as they came and roll with them. It was what she knew. Jemma’s cheeks flushed. She turned her eyes down and fidgeted with her hands. Daisy tried not to frown. This time, she was the one who spoke quietly. “How’s Will?” she asked.

Jemma’s eyes lifted and turned to Daisy, startled. She looked almost horrified, perhaps? Daisy wasn’t sure. Suddenly, though, Jemma rushed forward into the room and as soon as she was close enough to the bed, she leaned over and wrapped her arms around Daisy tightly.

Daisy stifled a grunt of pain as she lifted her left arm to move it around Jemma. “Hey,” She said softly when she realized Jemma was sniffling. She moved her hand along Jemma’s back. “We made it back, right? Everything’s okay,” she wasn’t a fan of saying things like that usually, but this seemed like a worthy situation.

“I took you on a near suicide mission fueled by my utter selfishness, you have every right to be mad at me and hate me forever – I almost got you killed, Skye!” Jemma’s ramble came out in such rush that Daisy didn’t get a chance to interrupt. She knew Jemma was really upset when she messed up her name, but Jemma kept going, sniffling as her voice cracked. “And the first thing you do is make a joke and ask me how the person who tried to attack you is doing?” She sniffled again and Daisy wrapped her arm tighter around Jemma and rubbed her back gently.

“Jem,” she said gently. “First of all,” She said as she allowed herself to stroke Jemma’s hair softly before she let her hand draw a few random, gentle circles along her back. “Your motives were _not_ selfish. You wanted to help someone - someone who was responsible for helping to keep you alive.” She pointed out. “It’s not your fault that he lost control of his faculties, Jem. I didn’t put up the fuss because I didn’t want to go and retrieve him for you – what Fitz said, it wasn’t what was influencing my decisions. He saved your life. He kept you going until we could find a way to get you. He’s part of the reason we got you back,” Daisy tried her best to keep her voice steady as she spoke against Jemma’s ear, resting her chin on her shoulder. “I didn’t want to put you in danger again. I wasn’t about to let you go through there without me, not when I knew how dangerous it was – I wasn’t going to let that place take you from us again,” she explained. Her eyes felt shut a moment, the comfort of being in Jemma’s arms having started to lull her into a familiar sleepiness.

Jemma sniffled and kissed the side of Daisy’s head and stroked her hair. She leaned back and looked at Daisy, really looked. Daisy leaned her head back against the pillows behind her, preparing herself for the conversation she knew Jemma would eventually insist on having with her, about what Fitz had said about her. She was hoping that Jemma would have waited until she was a little more healed, or at least not on forced medical bed rest.

“Are you up for some reading?” Jemma asked, reaching for the book on the end table.

Daisy’s face brightened before she could stop it. A slow, sleepy smile spread across her face. “I’ve been waiting for story time,” She gently teased with a relieved grin. Jemma was about to pull up a chair but Daisy frowned at her and shook her head. “Oh no you don’t,” she said, scooting to the right side of the hospital bed before Jemma could scold her. Jemma climbed up into the bed without pretense or protest, sitting higher up on the bed than Daisy. She lifted her arm and Daisy scooted again, rolling just slightly to her left side to curl up against Jemma’s side and use her as a pillow. It was a familiar position to them from way back when Daisy was recovering from her gunshot wounds. 

Jemma wrapped an arm around her shoulders as Daisy got comfortable and she opened the book to start reading. Daisy didn’t care what she had missed from the book. The comfort from this therapy came from Jemma’s closeness, and the tender way she would glide her fingers through Daisy’s hair, or kiss the top of her head every once in a while.

Before she started reading, Jemma leaned over and placed a kiss to the top of her head. “Thank you, Daisy,” she said quietly. In response, Daisy cuddled up closer against Jemma’s side in silent acknowledgement of the expressed gratitude.

Jemma cleared her throat and started reading from where she left off on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s _The Lost World_. Mack had told Jemma that when Daisy had discovered her choice in book reading this time, she had laughed hard enough to almost throw her shoulder out again. Jemma had found this information distressing while everyone else found it hilarious.

“ _There are strange red depths in the soul of the most commonplace man. I am tenderhearted by nature, and have found my eyes moist many a time over the scream of a wounded hare…_ ” She spoke, tone soft, clear, fluid and serene. It set Daisy at ease and kept her heart monitor beeping at a steady pace. Jemma continued reading for a while after she knew Daisy had fallen asleep by the soft, steady rhythm of her breaths. She put the book down and adjusted the covers around Daisy, and then she stayed through the night with her. She combed her fingers gently through Daisy’s hair and along her shoulder and arm.

\----

“Heyyyyyyyyy Simmons,” Daisy called in a singsong tone as she held onto the edge of Jemma’s doorframe and swung around it to appear, hanging at an angle with a big stupid grin on her face. It was Christmas Eve. The base was pretty much a ghost town. Daisy had turned down multiple holiday offers. Coulson invited her to spend the holiday with him on a trip to...actually she couldn’t pronounce the name of the place but she thought it might have been in Iceland. Bobbi had invited her to come home with her to visit her family, so that she could witness firsthand how much Hunter squirmed around his former/sort-of-current-again in-laws but Daisy had turned that one down too on the condition that Bobbi take lots of video evidence. May, Mack, Fitz - they were all dispersing home to visit their respective families. Daisy felt too out of place to accompany them. On top of that, she knew Jemma had opted to stay behind to work on a project and had promised her parents and her brother that she would visit home sometime soon in the New Year. Daisy didn’t want her to have to spend the next few weeks alone. Jemma hadn’t been the same since the fallout from the Will situation had thrown her for a loop. Turned out Will had a family, and they hadn’t quite moved on after losing him. Daisy thought it was fairly heartless the way he had barely so much as spared a glance back at Jemma before up and leaving her for his old life.

In her bunk, Jemma had been working on some notes. Her hair was down, cut again to her shoulders and hanging in messy waves as she wrote her notations and occasionally pushed her glasses back up onto her nose, having taken her contacts out hours ago when they were irritating her. She finished a notation, eyebrows arching as she looked up to see Daisy in the doorway. A small smile tipped up the corners of her mouth. “Hullo, Daisy,” She said.

Daisy grimaced comically and let out a groan. “Are youworking on _Christmas Eve_??” She admonished as she strolled into the room without actually asking, not that they needed permission from each other at this point in their friendship.

Jemma chuckled lightly as Daisy flopped down on the bed with a sigh. “What do you suggest I fill my time with?” She asked. “I stayed behind to work on this project,” She reminded Daisy.

“Mmmmmm, yes,” Daisy nodded. “A project that will take you two weeks to finish and has a deadline for February…” She said, narrowing her eyes suspiciously as she slowly sung out the words. Jemma arched her eyebrows. “Bobbi told me about it,” Daisy smirked.

“Why is everyone so surprised that I want to do science, anymore?” Jemma heaved a half-joking sigh.

“Easy there, ‘Mione!” Daisy said with a teasing grin. “My problem with it, is that it’s _Christmas Eve_!” She stood up from the bed. “Put your work away and come with me!” she held her hands out and wiggled her fingers as if to say, ‘C’monnnnnnnnnnn!’ while she grinned at Jemma and bounced her eyebrows.

“Come with you where?” She asked, intrigued but also just slightly wary.

“First, for food - then for fun,” Daisy grinned. Jemma was about to protest but the mention of food reminded her stomach that it had been a long time since breakfast and the organ let out a rumble. Daisy laughed. “Ah-ha!” She cheered in triumph. “You can’t argue with your belly! Jemma Simmons, you are my Christmas Elf for at _least_ the next few hours - c’monnnnnn, stop fighting me. When are we ever going to get time to just hang out again without anyone interrupting us - the place is empty! It’s just me and you, kid!” She grinned.

Jemma relented with a put on sigh. She put her books aside and reached for Daisy’s hands. Daisy seized Jemma’s hands and hoisted her, with ease, up to her feet. “Well, I see your arm is doing much better,” Jemma said as she almost stumbled into Daisy, who laughed and hooked an arm around her shoulders.

“Wait til you see all my other improvements,” She teased as she and Jemma made their way towards the kitchen and dining room.

Four hours and two full bellies later, Daisy and Jemma were huddled up in pajamas with blankets, pillows and mugs of spiked apple cider while watching all manner of Christmas movies fit for little kids. Some of them were films Jemma hadn’t actually watched since she was a little girl. They had watched the Grinch’s heart grow three sizes, had watched Linus give that pitiful little Christmas tree some loving from his baby blanket and were currently watching Rudolph be a misfit.

Jemma gave Daisy a sideways glance. She hadn’t considered before today that Daisy had an attachment to Christmas – or any other holiday, really, aside from Halloween, when she had witnessed Daisy ingest so much candy she had been sure that she was going to need her stomach pumped. Currently, as Rudolph, Hermey and Yukon Cornelius made it to the island of Misfit Toys, Daisy had her knees pulled up loosely to her chest, her comfy Xmas sock-clad feet were resting on the edge of the couch and her eyes were glued to the television. She was actually swaying just a tiny bit as the toys sung about their plight as misfit toys. Jemma tried not to stare but her head tilted slightly and her brow furrowed lightly as she realized that Daisy’s eyes were just slightly welled up as she rested her chin on the tops of her knees.

Turning to look back at the television, Jemma moved to set her cider mug down on its coaster after taking a sip. “I didn’t know you enjoyed Christmas so much,” She said in a gentle and somewhat guilty tone, ashamed of herself for not pressing harder in past years to drag Daisy with her to visit home for the holidays.

Daisy didn’t look at Jemma right away. She left her arms loosely wrapped around her legs. “I know most people exploit the idea of the holiday as just something that’s morphed into a greedy, overblown consumer spending spree filled with family gatherings that people seem to not actually want to go to, but,” Daisy shrugged. “I like the idea behind it in general, I guess,” She said.

Jemma nodded and wondered if she should prod any further. She glanced at the television and smiled. “Well I, for one, would much rather play with a Charlie in the box or a spotted elephant than some plain old boring Jack in the box or single shade of gray elephant,” She opted for a small joke, just to let Daisy know that she wasn’t picking on her enjoyment of Christmas. She thought back to the times she had lamented having to buy things for her family and how she felt like she was terrible at gift giving to them since they weren’t into the things she was into. Daisy had even helped her buy gifts for them in the past – with immense success in fact.

The corners of Daisy’s mouth turned upward. “Rudolph’s always been my favorite,” She announced, though she seemed a bit hesitant to admit it. She leaned over against Jemma’s side and brought her head to rest on her shoulder as she left her eyes on the television screen.

“Yeah?” Jemma asked, using the simple one-word question to ask Daisy to go on, without prodding for specifics so that she would feel comfortable being vague if she wanted to when she answered.

Daisy nodded against her shoulder. “First because I wanted to be a bumble,” She stated.

Jemma let out a startled guffaw of laughter before she could stop herself. “Why ever would you want to be a _Bumble?_ ” She asked with a chuckle at the mental image.

Daisy lifted her head, a lopsided grin on her face as if the question itself was absurd. “Ummmm…because Bumbles bounce?” She answered as if this was obvious. Jemma giggled. “What?” Daisy asked, the picture of innocence even though the right portion of her mouth turned upward.

Jemma shook her head. “You’re adorable,” she grinned. “What’s the second reason?”

Daisy’s eyes shifted back to the television. “I wanted to live on the Island of Misfit Toys,” she answered, this time a sad smile fixing across her mouth. “Thought that I would fit in pretty well with them.”

Jemma was quiet for a long moment and Daisy was afraid to look at her after the admission. Silently, Jemma leaned over and wrapped her arms around the somewhat bundled Daisy and pulled her over against her side, combing her fingers through her hair and bringing Daisy’s head to rest on her shoulder. She turned her head down and kissed the top of Daisy’s. “It certainly did take you long enough to find them,” she said. “But you were right. You fit in here with us perfectly.”

Daisy smiled but didn’t verbally reply. Instead, she shuffled around just enough to move her legs out of the way and wrap her arms around Jemma’s middle. They stayed cuddled up together for the rest of Rudolph. They made some popcorn to go with the next few movies, all of them of the cartoon or Claymation variety and they made it through a few more rounds of spiked cider.

“I think it’s time for bed,” Jemma yawned as she pulled herself to her feet, gathering dishes.

Daisy sighed. “Jemmmmmmmmmmmmmm,” she said with a playful cringe. “You’re allowed to be irresponsible on holidays,” she pointed out, though she grabbed some of their dirty mugs and dishes and followed Jemma to the kitchen to load up the dishwasher. They started loading the items into the dishwasher to get them set.

“I can’t help it if we have to go to sleep to make sure Santa doesn’t skip over the base!” Jemma teased, mustering up the most innocent tone and expression she could when she said it.

Daisy laughed as she shut the dishwasher and pressed the buttons to turn it on. “Right, we can’t have that – I’ll be sure to set out cookies and milk before I go to sleep,” she grinned.

“Don’t forget the carrots!” Jemma gasped. Daisy’s face twisted up before her eyebrows arched in a comical expression at the shorter woman. “…For the reindeer?” Jemma clarified.

Daisy’s eyebrows hiked up more and her face morphed into that of someone who had just seen the cutest puppy on the planet. “You _do_ have a gigantic Grinch sized Christmas heart!” Daisy gasped before she threw her arms around Jemma and gave her a swaying bear hug.

“And you have the bear hug of a Bumble,” Jemma said with a smile after returning the hug. Daisy chuckled as she backed out of the embrace and prepared to head back for the common room. Jemma cleared her throat and let out an, “Ah-ah-ah, and just where do you think you’re going?” She stopped Daisy’s retreat by catching her by the wrist and the outside corner of her hand.

Daisy stopped her backward trek, her arm outstretched in Jemma’s gentle grip. She arched just her right eyebrow this time giving her head an inquisitive tilt only to find that Jemma was pointing upward with her free hand, the arm bent at the elbow. Above the sink and dishwasher area hung a small sprig of mistletoe that Daisy hadn’t even realized was there. Daisy’s eyes widened a little bit, startled by Jemma’s suggestion.

“You can’t very well ignore my favorite of all the holiday traditions after upholding all the others before it,” Jemma pointed out with a flirtatious smile, undeterred by Daisy’s momentary hesitation. She understood why Daisy would hesitate about something like this, so she used the hand she was holding to pull Daisy back to her.

“Jem,” The word came off Daisy’s lips in a whisper. Her eyes were cast down to Jemma’s mouth and the way she had struck her tongue out to run along her lips.

Jemma smiled. Her own eyes were focused on Daisy’s mouth for a moment before she lifted them to Daisy’s eyes. She leaned slightly up onto her toes, bringing their faces less than inches apart. There was one last glance, down to Daisy’s mouth and then back to her eyes before she spoke in a soft tone that had matched Daisy’s. “You’re not afraid of a little mistletoe, yeah?” She angled her head just so and before Daisy could even think of a reply, Jemma had leaned further up on her toes and pulled Daisy to her, one arm pulling her in by her shoulder and the other by the back of her head and neck where her fingers had tangled into strands of her hair there, bringing Daisy in to close the distance between them. Daisy felt the surge of electricity that shocked its way down her spine at the feel of Jemma’s arms around her, fingers in her hair. Her arms responded reflexively, reaching for Jemma’s hips to pull her forward until they were pressed flush together. She felt the heat spread through her from their connected mouths as her lips pulled against Jemma’s.

In a haze of delirium that had quickly over taken them, within moments, Daisy had hoisted Jemma up onto the counter without breaking the heated lip lock they were engrossed in and found herself standing between her knees with Jemma’s legs wrapped around her hips, the heels of her feet pulling Daisy in until she was pressed flush against the warmth between her hips. Daisy held on, her hands sliding down along the curve of her rear, leaning into the kiss until the back of Jemma’s head lightly bumped into the cabinet behind her. Jemma’s grip on Daisy never loosened. Her fingernails scraped along Daisy’s scalp and caused her to moan against Jemma’s mouth as their tongues and lips pulled hungrily against each other in rhythm.

With a sharp, breathless inhale, Daisy hesitantly broke the kiss, leaving their foreheads touching gently and giving them just the bare millimeters of space between them. She felt lightheaded as she stood there, both of them breathless. Jemma stared at Daisy, trying to lock their eyes and silently ask if she was alright without letting her go. “Jem,” Her name was just a winded ghost of a whisper laced with equal parts of desire and confusion. This had not been her plan when staying behind or dragging Jemma from her work for holiday celebrating, but she couldn’t deny it was something that she wanted for a long time. Her eyes locked with Jemma’s as she exhaled a shaky breath. “…I don’t…” she licked her lips. “I don’t want to be a temporary bandage,” she whispered. “For a wound someone else caused…” 

Jemma’s eyes were locked on hers and Daisy felt like Jemma was attempting to bore holes into the depths of her soul with the way she was staring into her. Daisy was stuck frozen in her spot, staring back at Jemma. She felt unsure about this turn of things because she feared this was a distraction Jemma was seeking and that it would implode once Jemma had sorted her head and heart out in the wake of everything that had happened in the last year or so. She didn’t, however, move to back away. She just waited and tried to ignore the way her heart was racing, pounding hard against her ribcage. She wanted it, Jemma knew, could feel it in herself just as intensely as the look in Daisy’s eyes told her that Daisy was feeling it too. 

Jemma’s heels flexed, her legs used them to pull Daisy to bring her body in as physically close as she could. Daisy exhaled a choppy puff of air that cut off prematurely as she pressed her teeth into the corner of her bottom lip. Jemma felt the hot air along her collarbone and it sent a shiver rolling down her, sending her gut and core into the beginning of a tight coil she knew well. Her fingers carded through Daisy’s hair and she brought her other hand down to rest along Daisy’s cheek, pressing their foreheads together. “I would never use you like that,” She whispered when Daisy’s eyes closed and she had leaned into Jemma’s touch as if, for the moment, it pained her. Daisy’s eyes opened and stared at Jemma again. Before she could come up with any further queries or reasons to put an end to the moment before it had really started, Jemma bumped her nose lightly to Daisy’s and closed off the scant distance between them and captured Daisy in an heated openmouthed kiss. 

It was all the assurance Daisy needed to be positive this was what Jemma wanted too and not just something to pacify whatever holes Will had left in her heart. Daisy eagerly returned the kiss, with fervor. Her hands traveled along Jemma’s sides. At the same time that Jemma attempted to pull Daisy closer again by her waist, she pressed her own hips forward and let as many of the sensitive areas between them that were pressed together find purchase for friction. A groan of pleasure escaped Daisy’s throat before she had wrapped her arms around Jemma’s middle and picked her up off of the counter. They needed a change of scenery. Jemma’s arms wrapped around Daisy’s shoulders and Daisy grinned against the smaller woman’s mouth as she let out a stifled squeal against Daisy’s lips. 

There was a long stumble that commenced down the corridors. Daisy’s short pants of air tickled Jemma’s ear as Jemma’s mouth found its way to the side of Daisy’s jaw, neck and the rounded spot just behind her ear. Her fingers traced along Daisy’s tautly flexed shoulder blades and came down along the outlines of her biceps, pressing her fingertips into the firm muscle. A number of times on the trek, Daisy had to stop and lean Jemma up against one of the walls so she could properly quench the thirst for another taste of her amidst gropes, groans, demands that Daisy not drop her, and nervous fits of laughter between the both of them. 

“ _Finally,_ ” Daisy said with a sigh of satisfaction as she leaned Jemma up against the door frame to her room and pulled a hand free to turn the knob of Jemma’s bunk door. She pushed the door open and hoisted Jemma back into her arms. Her mouth had found Jemma’s again as she stepped into the room and used her foot to push the door shut behind them. They didn’t have to worry about locking it since it wasn’t like there was anyone around to peep in on them and, in her current state, Daisy wouldn’t have had the wherewithal to even though about door locks. 

Jemma’s hands cupped Daisy’s face, pulling to suck against her bottom lip and curling her tongue in a practiced tango with Daisy’s as Daisy laid her back onto her bed and crawled right in with her since Jemma hadn’t even released her legs’ grip on Daisy’s hips. Daisy leaned her weight on her palms on either side of Jemma’s shoulders and rolled her hips to grind down against Jemma and suddenly the kiss was broken as Jemma inhaled a sharp gasp. A carnal sounding growl rippled from her throat as her hips rocked back up against Daisy’s. Daisy’s brain was clouded in a heavy fog of lust as she gazed down at Jemma, who looked positively ravenous beneath her as she stared up into Daisy’s face, eager, impatient and hungry. Daisy opened her mouth between gasps for air but Jemma didn’t give her a chance. 

“Yes,” Jemma answered Daisy’s unasked question. There was a sudden flurry of activity. Clothes were haphazardly ripped free of limbs and tossed aside as they rolled around the bed to get rid of the cloth barriers between them. Fingers dragged and scraped along fleshy canvases, ivory and mocha colored in kind. Lips kissed, tongues licked and teeth nibbled along, exploring nerve centers to see who could make the other writhe around and plead, breathlessly losing control of vocal sounds – names morphed into sighs and moans, into pleas for attention to particular spots, into prayers to deities that neither actually believed existed. Muscles tensed and released, clenched and rolled. Sweat beaded on their flesh and melded together, matting their tangles of hair as their bodies rocked and bucked, melding into a single heated beast roaring against each other with passion and fury, with want and need. 

In the euphoric haze of the aftermath, once they had come down and cooled off, had caught their breath and found their way somehow back into bits of their night clothes, they lay in an entangled jumble of limbs and covers, arms wrapped around each other. Jemma’s face was pressed into the crook of Daisy’s neck, where she lay simply breathing Daisy in. Jemma occasionally tilted her face enough to lay soft, sweet little lingering kisses along her collarbone and the corners of her neck and throat. Her arms were laced around Daisy’s middle, fingers alternating between drawing random patterns along her back, down her sides and over the curve of her hip. Their legs were a hopelessly tangled mess that brought them tangled completely together from the hips down. 

Daisy’s arms were wrapped snugly around Jemma’s shoulders. Her fingers combed rhythmically through Jemma’s hair, careful not to tug any tangles they encountered, occasionally playing with random tufts of hair along the back of her neck. The fingertips of her other hand traced along Jemma’s cheek and along her jaw, as if the tentative touch was there almost solely to ensure Daisy that Jemma was really there with her. 

Silence had fallen between them once they had settled and each seemed reluctant to be the one to break it. Eventually, Daisy decided to breach it. “So…what now…?” She asked in whisper, as if talking too loud might make her wake up from the dream she had found herself in. In her arms, Jemma stilled, lips suspended, still puckered and pressed to a patch of Daisy’s skin. Daisy held her breath; unsure if the silence meant the wheels were turning in Jemma’s mind because she was considering the question or if the question had brought Jemma back to reality. Daisy really hoped it was the former rather than the latter. 

Jemma shifted her head to pull her lips free of Daisy’s collar but paused and dropped a soft kiss against her collarbone before she finally spoke. “I’m not sure,” she answered honestly. Her arms circled to hold tighter onto Daisy’s middle and she listened carefully to the slow exhale Daisy released before she spoke again. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, leaning just her head back enough to set it on the pillow, her chin still resting against the top of Daisy’s shoulder. “About how you felt,” she added, just to clarify. 

Daisy fell quiet this time. Jemma didn’t hold her breath, but she was watching the way Daisy’s face moved as she considered the question. Daisy turned her head, shifting so she could get a better look at Jemma as she brought her arm to rest around her. “You were already dealing with Fitz’s confession,” She closed her eyes momentarily when Jemma’s fingers came up and combed some of the tangles of her hair out of her face. When they opened again they landed on Jemma’s eyes. “Then you were gone and I…” she frowned. “We didn’t know you were on a mission, and I just thought…” she shrugged her shoulders and dropped her eyes. 

Realization dawned on Jemma with a sudden and sobering jolt of clarity. “You thought I abandoned you…” She said on an exhale of horror, not even putting a pretense of it being the ‘team’ that she left.

“It was a mission,” Daisy shrugged and shook her head against the pillow, but kept her eyes focused just below Jemma’s. She cleared her throat. “And then San Juan happened…” She said softly.

Jemma immediately frowned further. Her fingers tucked some of Daisy’s hair behind her ear before her hand come to rest gently against Daisy’s cheek. “Daisy, I-,”

“You were scared, I know,” she nodded. “It just…” she shrugged one of her shoulders again. “We never really got to resolve it, not after the cabin and Afterlife…” Her eyes finally landed on Jemma’s. “By the time we were anywhere close to being able to sort anything out, the portal took you.” She said. 

“When I came back….” Jemma started to say but stopped when Daisy fixed her with a horrified expression. 

“Jem, I wasn’t going to do that to you,” Daisy shook her head again. “Not after everything you had been through, that you were still going through.” She frowned. “Between that and Fitz…” she shrugged her shoulders, “I didn’t want to turn this into some kind of weird…triangle thing to pit you in the middle of us,” She said. “I don’t want to do that to you now either,” Daisy dropped her eyes again, this time to Jemma’s collarbones. “Although I suppose it’s more than a triangle now.” It was more like an amorphous quad blob, sort of. 

For a long few moments, Jemma was quiet but Daisy could feel Jemma’s eyes searching her face for something even though she kept her eyes from meeting Jemma’s for fear of what she might find in the other woman’s face right then. The bed shifted just slightly as Jemma moved, closing the gap between them while still cupping the side of Daisy’s face with her hand and brought their lips together for a long, lingering, sweet kiss. When she pulled away and set her head on the pillow next to Daisy’s, she pressed their foreheads together to prevent Daisy from averting her eyes. “It’s a straight line,” she said. She felt Daisy’s brow furrow against hers and almost smiled at it. She bumped their noses together and spoke once more, “From my heart to yours,” her lips just barely grazed against Daisy’s as she whispered the explanation and ran her thumb in a light path along the length of Daisy’s cheekbone. 

Daisy stared at Jemma. At some point after that little kiss, her heart had jammed itself into her throat and had started racing so face it was drumming such a loud beat in her ears that she was sure Jemma had to be able to hear it. She felt astonished that this moment was happening and was dreading the moment she woke up from this dream. 

“I’d much prefer to keep it that way,” Jemma went on, trying to determine where Daisy’s head was at in the wake of her comments. “If that sounds agreeable to you, I mean…?” She leaned back just enough to get a full look at Daisy’s face as she inclined her own eyebrows slightly in question. 

Daisy buried her fingers into Jemma’s hair and pulled her closer; answering the lingering question with a long, heated kiss that only broke when the two of them needed air. Jemma grinned and stole a couple more quick kisses before she tucked her head back into the crook of Daisy’s neck and shoulder. Daisy pulled the covers properly over them and then wrapped her arms around Jemma to pull her in as close as she could. 

“Ow! _Hey_!” Daisy gasped and let out a startled yelp, her body jolting slightly when Jemma moved her hand down her side and pinched a handful of her skin. Jemma bit her bottom lip and snickered. “What was that for!?” Daisy asked as Jemma’s hand flattened over the spot and gently rubbed back and forth to sooth it. 

Jemma kissed a small spot below Daisy’s collar against her chest. “You looked so befuddled, I wanted to make sure you knew you were really awake…” she answered, tone innocent and playful. She smiled when she felt the laughter bubbling up Daisy’s chest and throat before it rippled out from her lips. 

“…Thanks….I think?” Daisy replied as Jemma’s arm laced around her middle again. 

“Happy Christmas, Daisy,” Jemma replied in a whisper that was interrupted by a small yawn. 

Daisy smiled to herself and gave the smaller woman a squeeze. “Merry Christmas, Jem,” she replied before she turned her head down to kiss the top of Jemma’s and then brought her chin to rest on the spot so they could settle in for the night. Neither woman could remember the last time they had felt so relaxed and comfortably at peace while drifting off to sleep.


	7. Focus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Warning:** Blood, CPR, Surgical things and sobs lay ahead. sorrynotsorrybutIhopeyoulikeit! 
> 
> <3 Thank you so very much for your feedback, comments, kudos, all the love! I'm glad to see other people enjoying this ride as much as I am! Thank you for sticking with me! Enjoy and have a good night!! :)  
> \--------------------------------------

The world surrounding Jemma seemed to completely shrink and disappear. Tear stains streaked through the dirt and blood on her face. The blood, all of it, but for a very small patch of it near the hairline of her left temple, was Daisy’s. It came from a combination of the wounds on Daisy’s torso while she pumped compressions against her sternum and it came from blood that had originally been pooled in her mouth, that Jemma had had to scraped out before she could attempt any rescue breaths. Her senses focused solely on what was happening in front of her. She could hear Lily still sobbing in Fitz’s arms as he huddled behind Hunter and a couple of other agents to keep them protected from the racket going on around them as they cleared any last straggling attackers approaching. 

May alternated CPR with Jemma, one doing compressions, one doing rescue breaths. Jemma was covered in a layer of sweat from a combination of the effort put forth and the adrenaline coursing through her still. She screamed Daisy’s name, occasionally doing so through sobs, pleading, desparate. She was unaware of how much time passed. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to stop until they brought Daisy back; there was no question about it. 

“Simmons,” May said her name in a gentle tone. She reached for Jemma’s arm only to have Jemma wrench it out of her grasp. 

“No!” She turned wild eyes to May and then swung an angry fist down against Daisy’s chest in an effort to get her heart started where the CPR had failed. Tears flooded her vision and cascaded down her cheeks as she swung again. Sobs broke her voice as she framed Daisy’s face with her hands, turning her head towards her as her tears fell, landing on Daisy’s face and hair. “You can’t go!” She sobbed. “I won’t let you!” She pulled back and swung again, landing hard pounding hammer shaped fists against Daisy’s chest over her heart. She swung again, her sobs wracking her shoulders up and down as she did, and again…and again. With an anguished sob of despair, she swung one last feeble blow before she leaned over and pressed her face into Daisy’s chest. She was gone. Daisy was gone. In all of the years they had known each other, with all of the dangers they had faced, Jemma had never felt the vacuous void that had reached in and consumed her as her brain tried to wrap around what was happening right in front of her. She gripped fistfuls of Daisy’s torn clothes as she wailed, unable to force control over herself. 

May reached for Simmons but Bobbi reached for one of her batons. “Let go,” She said suddenly to Jemma and May. “Simmons, let her go – you have to let her-,” 

Jemma lifted her head and was quite literally about to tell Bobbi to fuck off when May realized what Bobbi was thinking. May pried Jemma’s hands free and, with a greater deal of force than she was expecting to need to use, pulled Jemma back so she wasn’t touching Daisy’s body. Jemma let out an unintelligible wail at being forced away from Daisy just as Bobbi flipped her batons around. She jabbed the end of one into the top of Daisy’s chest and the other into the side of her rib cage. Daisy’s body jolted momentarily from the ground with the surge of electricity that came from the ends of the batons. Jemma let out a gasping sob as she watched it. She called Daisy’s name again and struggled against May’s hold on her. May kept her arms wrapped firmly around Jemma, pinning her arms from the elbows up to keep her from swinging as she tried to break free and get to Daisy. 

“C’mon, Daisy,” Bobbi muttered. She jabbed the batons into Daisy’s chest and side again, causing her body to jerk once more. “The joke’s not funny anymore,” she murmured and took a deep breath, deciding she’d try one more time before giving up. She braced herself and jammed the batons into Daisy’s chest and ribs one more time, holding them there a second as Daisy’s body arched off the ground and shook. She pulled the batons back and looked down at Daisy for any sign of life. A long few moments seemed to suspend the situation around them. Jemma was crying Daisy’s name, May was holding her back, Hunter and Fitz were watching from a few feet away, Lily was sobbing, calling out for both of her parents. Bobbi’s eyes landed on Daisy’s chest and then her face. 

Daisy’s jaw lurched as her body finally reacted. Her lungs attempted to fill with a gasp that was stifled by a rasping gurgle. Bobbi immediately dropped the batons. She reached out and rolled Daisy onto her side, her relief gone immediately when a load of blood, mucus and who knew what else came pouring from Daisy’s mouth. Jemma had nearly fainted when it happened. The wind had been sucked right out of her and then her struggle to get back to Daisy was so forceful, May had no choice but to immediately let go. Daisy’s body wracked with coughs and gurgles and strained to find air.

Jemma collided with Bobbi at their sides as Bobbi reached right into Daisy’s mouth to clear her airway out. Daisy was still struggling to actually pull air in. “Daisy!” She gasped, exhaling shudders as the tears kept coming. Her hand gripped Daisy’s shoulder and stroked over her hair. “She can’t breathe,” She said as she watched the way Daisy’s inhales didn’t actually seem to bring air in. “She can’t breathe, she-,” 

“ _Simmons_ ” Bobbi said her name in a calm but forceful tone. Jemma was shaking so badly that Bobbi didn’t know how she was conscious or how she could focus on anything. Even as Jemma stopped, startled and looked at her. “We need to stabilize her enough to get her to the bus,” she said, hoping to get Jemma kicked into gear. 

Jemma trembled. Daisy was breathing! But she couldn’t breathe. She turned Daisy onto her back temporarily, wishing more than anything that her eyes would open. Tentative hands moved along Daisy’s torso and felt rigidness along the left side as Daisy let out low rumbling groans of pain between gasps. Jemma leaned over and pressed her ear tight to Daisy’s chest, covering her other ear with her hand she closed her eyes and listened as Daisy tried to inhale. “It’s collapsed,” Jemma gasped. She picked her head up and glanced again from Daisy’s chest to her face, wishing once more that Daisy would just open her eyes for a moment.

“What?” Bobbi asked. 

“Collapsed – her lung’s collapsed. At least one of them, maybe....maybe both?” Jemma replied, pressing along Daisy’s ribs to see if she could find a broken one. It was likely one could have broken during CPR, but from the way Daisy had coughed up blood...Some of Jemma’s adrenaline was waning in the wake of the rollercoaster of emotions and she fought to steady her hands and bring her brain into focus. She reminded herself that Daisy needed her right then and needed her to be focused and on point. “I need tools-,”

“Hunter!” Bobbi shouted, but Lance had already grabbed the medical bag Fitz had brought with him and tossed it to May, who immediately opened it and set it next to Bobbi. 

When she hit a particular rib, Daisy attempted to inhale a sharp, pained gasp. Jemma cringed, but she forced herself to focus. She put her ear back down to Daisy’s chest and listened to the left side of her chest once more. She started calling out the items she needed from the first aid kit. Her hands steadied as she forced her panic momentarily down into the darkest depths she could. It only took a few moments, but it felt like years. Jemma and Bobbi worked while May helped them. First she had Bobbi roll Daisy onto her side to clear her mouth and throat again and then she cut away Daisy’s shirts to get a clear path to the injuries of her upper chest. Swaths of injuries dotted Daisy’s torso and took Jemma’s breath away as they were all revealed. 

“Simmons,” Bobbi said again, calm and stern. “Focus.”

Jemme blinked away her tears and nodded. Right. Focus. She found the bruised area near the broken rib, the flesh surrounding it was tight and swollen, covered in a deep purple contusion. She doused the area and her hands in rubbing alcohol since time was a factor with the way Daisy was gasping, and then used a scalpel to make a small, deep incision. Immediately there was an almost popping sound, like the snapping hiss of air that usually accompanied the opening of a soda can. Jemma inserted the tube Bobbi handed her into the incision. She used two pads of petroleum coated gauze to cover the incision and tube and keep air from filtering back into the incision area and the port of the tube so that it would keep the chest cavity sealed from air getting caught again. Bobbi taped firmly around the gauze to secure everything in place. Jemma turned the valve on the end of the tube and let the air that had collected in the left side of Daisy’s chest cavity out so her lung could actually inflate properly. The effect was almost immediate. Daisy let out a burble of an exhale and, though she was still having some trouble with fluid in her throat, she was at least breathing a bit more normally. 

Jemma lost control of herself a moment and a sob escaped her as she stroked a hand over Daisy’s hair. They needed to move her, and fast. Daisy and Lily still weren’t out of the woods yet - literally. Jemma took a few deep breaths and tried to calm herself down. She looked at May, still hearing Lily’s cries from nearby. “Get Lily to the bus. We need something to carry Daisy on,” She said. 

May nodded and sprang to her feet. “Fitz, with me,” She said, grabbing some of the extra agents to have extra cover as they moved through the woods, running back for the bus. Fitz took Lily into one of the medical bays and locked them both inside. He set her down on the table so she wouldn’t see the other bays or the incoming hallway and began to check her over completely for injuries while she cried and begged for both Jemma and Daisy. 

When May returned, they loaded Daisy onto the folding pole stretcher that May had brought back with her. Jemma cringed for every uncontrollable groan of pain that Daisy let out. May and Bobbi hoisted the stretcher up, Hunter grabbed their gear and Jemma raced off next to the stretcher, her hand clamped around Daisy’s as they moved through the wooded area with the rest of the agents covering them as they went. “We’re almost there, Daisy,” Jemma said as they went. “You stay with me.” 

“We’re on board, Mack, get us airborne,” May said over the com in her ear. 

“Roger,” Mack called back. “How is she?” 

“Get us to the closest trauma center you can find.” May replied. 

“Roger,” Mack said glumly as the buss lifted off after the hanger door closed. 

\------

 

Jemma stayed by Daisy’s side until they had landed and she had be wheeled out of sight and into surgery. By then, Daisy had already been hooked up to all manner of machines - a respirator, monitors, fluids, blood, etc. She had been covered in pressure pads to her various pen wounds. She hadn’t woken up, but….she also hadn’t stopped breathing on them again. 

“Lilly,” Jemma said next, turning with the intention of immediately finding her daughter now that there was nothing she could do for her wife. 

Bobbi stepped in her path. “Fitz checked her in and they’re taking her for X-rays.” She said, reaching out to put her hands gently on Jemma’s upper arms. Jemma wobbled on her feet a moment and Bobbi could see her trembling. “Let’s clean you up and then we’ll take you to her, okay?” Bobbi asked in a gentle tone, her own eyes welling now that she had nothing to occupy herself from everything that had happened. Seeing Simmons standing there, ashen and covered in smatterings of Daisy’s blood and dirt from the woods while looking positively lost and terrified...it was awful. Jemma nodded stiffly and Bobbi echoed the movement. She turned and wrapped one arm around Jemma’s waist, holding on at her hip to support her waist. She reached her other arm out and picked one of Jemma’s hands up in hers. 

“I promise we’ll be quick,” Bobbi told Jemma as she started walking her back to a nurse’s station to find them a restroom to clean up in. She had already told Mack to grab her a pair of scrubs and sweats from the bus. Once they were shown to a family restroom, Bobbi told Hunter to let her know when Mack arrived. She brought Jemma into the restroom and locked the door. Then she eased Jemma to sit down on the closed toilet seat. 

Jemma was horribly shaken. So much had happened, in such a short period of time; her family had died, her family was alive, Lily was alive, Daisy was not, they brought Daisy back but her injuries were extensive and- 

“Simmons,” Bobbi’s voice brought her back again. “Jemma,” She crouched in front of Jemma, who stared a bit blankly at her. Bobbi put her hands on Jemma’s shoulders. “You did good,” Bobbi said. “She’s strong, she’ll hold on-,” 

“Thank you,” Jemma whispered as she stared at Bobbi. Bobbi opened her mouth to speak but Jemma threw her arms around Bobbi’s neck and shoulders, unable to stop the flood of tears as she began to cry again. “T-Thank you,” She repeated again and again through half sobs. If it hadn’t been for Bobbi and her idea, Daisy would never have come back. 

Bobbi wrapped her arms around Jemma and held on to her. She let her cry into her shoulder for awhile, until Jemma had managed to pull herself together a little bit. “Let’s get you cleaned up so you can get to your baby girl, huh?” She suggested. Jemma nodded and blew her nose with the tissues Bobbi handed her. Bobbi went to work, helping Jemma clean herself of the blood and muck. She cleaned herself up as well, changing into the scrubs she had Mack bring for her and helping Jemma into the sweats. Both girls tied their hair up into lazy ponytails. “Go have Mack take to you to Lily, I’ll make sure this all gets taken care of,” Bobbi said, unlocking the door and holding it open for Jemma. Mack and Hunter were waiting in the hallway. “Mack, can you bring Simmons to Lilly?” 

Mack nodded. He wrapped an arm around Jemma’s shoulders and led her away. Jemma spared Bobbi one last glance as they went. Bobbi gave Jemma small nod. When Jemma and Mack were out of sight, Hunter stepped over to Bobbi just as her eyes were filling. 

\-----

Jemma’s mind reeled as they walked through the white painted halls lined with linoleum. Her brain felt like it was actually throbbing. The only part of her that felt worse was her heart from the pain in her chest. Her adrenaline was gone. Her body wanted to shut down. She had no idea if the doctors were going to bring Daisy back to her, no idea how long Daisy might have been dead before they had revived her or what the major consequences could be from the hypoxia. 

“Mummy!” Lily’s voice shrieked as Jemma and Mack turned into the hospital room. 

Jemma’s eyes widened. She barely had enough time to race to the edge of the bed as Lily was scrambling from Fitz’s side and leaping into her arms. With a grunt, she caught Lily and pulled her in, wrapping her arms tightly around the little girl. Before she could control it a small sob escaped her. Lily’s arms wrapped tight around her neck and her legs wrapped around her torso, both squeezing as tightly as they could. Jemma’s arm came to rest under Lily’s rear. Her other hand cradled the back of Lily’s head as she turned to plant multiple kisses along the side of Lily’s head and her shoulder as she fell into the chair that was next to the bed and sat on the edge of it. 

Jemma rocked with Lily when the little girl started to cry, running her hand over Lily’s hair and down her back. “Shhhh, it’s okay,” She whispered, trying to keep her voice as calm and even as possible. “I love you,” She repeated all three things over and over while Lilly cried. For a long time Lily wailed and whimpered, her face felt hot from the tears where her face rested in the crook of her neck and shoulder. Jemma let silent tears fall down her cheeks every now and then and just focused on calming Lily down until she was reduced to post-cry hiccups and a few last upset hums on some exhales. Jemma never loosened her grip on her daughter, just kept rubbing her back and stroking over her hair, rocking with her as she occasionally kissed the side of her head and murmured reassurances into her ear. 

When it seemed like Lily was likely to fall asleep, exhausted from the trauma of the day, Jemma moved to stand up. Instantly, Lily was alert. Her head jumped off of Jemma’s shoulder, her eyes filled up once again and she fixed Jemma with an alarmed expression. “No, mummy! Don’t go!” She whimpered, breathing so heavily that she was almost hyperventilating as her legs gripped onto Jemma’s torso. Her little hands were fisted tightly into the shoulders of Jemma’s hoodie.

Jemma shook her head and gently bounced Lily on her hip, shifting the little girl's weight so she could hold her up with one arm and gently wipe at her tears with one of her hands. “I’m not going anywhere, baby, I promise,” She said quickly, ignorant of Fitz and Mack’s presence in the room as she climbed into the hospital bed rather than putting Lily down into it, as was her original plan. She pressed a few of the buttons on the bed until he was lying mostly flat. With great effort, she managed to pry Lily’s legs away from her torso. She was as gentle as she could be. Lying down on her side, she pulled the pillow over first and the moment Lily was curled into her side and crying into her collarbone again, Jemma’s arms were around her, combing through her hair and rubbing gentle circles along her back. She kissed the side of Lily’s head. “I know, love...I’m going to stay right here with you, yeah? I promise I won’t leave if you promise you won’t, deal?” She leaned back enough to look at Lily, gently running her fingers along her cheek and the side of her face. 

With a sniffle, Lily nodded, calming down once again to those horrible post-cry spasm hiccups. Jemma had always hated those and wished she could rub them away with the circles she pressed into Lily’s back. 

“I want Mama…” Lily’s voice was worn and exhausted, defeated and scared, painfully sad. 

“Me too, baby,” Jemma said after a long moment of trying to ensure her voice was steady. She kissed the side of Lily’s head as Lily curled back up against her side again, fisting up handfuls of Jemma’s hoodie once morepromise. “We’ll see her soon, when the doctors are done fixing her up, though, okay?” Jemma didn’t know what she was going to do if, heaven forbid, this promise turned out to be a lie. Jemma forced her brain away from those thoughts. She couldn’t think them right now, not when Lily was still awake and with how scared her daughter was right then. There was a lot to take in and Jemma could feel her body trying to shut down on her. 

While Lily was sniffling and rubbing her face against Jemma’s hoodie since she refused to let go of her, Bobbi and Hunter entered the room. One of the agents who had stayed behind at the scene gathering evidence had sent an officer along with Groot, Lily’s favorite stuffed animal. It was a stuffed monkey that Daisy had bought her when they were out once at the zoo a little over a year ago. The poor thing had been through a lot. Often, it needed to be tossed in the washer and dryer in a pillowcase to clean it of the messes it got into with Lily. Whenever Groot was ‘taking a bath,’ Lily would patiently sit in front of the washer and then the dryer, waiting for her best stuffed animal buddy to return. It seemed one of the few times aside from when she was sleeping that they could get her to simply sit still and just be. Groot had multiple stitch marks where Jemma or Daisy had had to perform emergency surgery to ensure in ‘stuffins stayed stuffeded in!’ as Lily had informed them. Bobbi was holding onto the Monkey as they walked in. She had had the nurses attach a small bandage to the right side of the monkey’s forehead to match one that Fitz had put on Lily earlier to cover up a cut she had sustained. 

“Look who I found on my way here,” Bobbi said, speaking quietly and feigning a little bit of excitement as she approached the bed. 

“Groot!” Lily reached out towards the stuffed monkey with a whimper, not quite past the stage of morphing ‘R’s into ‘W’s in her speech yet, especially so with the exhaustion she was suffering from the attack. Daisy had asked Lily once why she had named the monkey Groot since Groot was a tree. Lily had very matter of factly informed her Mama that monkeys swing and hang from trees, as if that simply explained everything. 

Bobbi smiled and quickly handed the monkey over to the little girl. Lily wrapped both of her arms around Groot and buried her face into Jemma’s collar again, still managing to grab a fistful of her hoodie as she did so. 

Bobbi gave Jemma’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Thank you,” she said and Bobbi just gave her a small nod. 

“How is she?” Bobbi nodded toward Lily, who was rapidly losing her fight against sleep in Jemma’s arms. Jemma looked over at Fitz. 

“Oh, em,” Fitz cleared his throat and spoke quietly. “No fractures. No concussion. No internal bleeds. Couple of contusions. Wee little scrape on her forehead. Other than that, scared, confused and upset.” He said as the others all began to settle around the room. Mack went out to find them more chairs. Soon the room was full; Mack, Hunter, Fitz, Bobbi, May - Jemma just watched Lily as she slept, running her fingers through the girl’s soft, dark tangled curls of hair, rubbing more circles and patterns along her back. She heard the conversations as they waited for the doctors to come and update them on Daisy. It was a long wait. Hours passed by slowly. Jemma dozed off restlessly and woke up a number of times. But she still heard the conversations, updates about Ward and where he had been transferred. The mere mention of his name caused Jemma’s arms to tighten around Lily as her blood ran cold. Coulson was on his way back and still an hour or two out from touchdown, having been in London meeting with Fury and a few secret intelligence agents. The team waited, huddled together, trying to keep each other from spiraling into the depths of fear. 

Jemma lay staring at the wall, her chin tucked against Lily’s head, her hands rubbing the length of the little girl’s back. Her mind wandered to all of the darkest places it could reach, pulling out memories she had previously stowed and locked away, previously replaced with the happier ones to keep her warm. Now the cold, hollow memories had broken out and were slowly sucking her hope away from her with each minute that ticked by on the analog clock hanging on the wall by the door. She thought about Daisy and all that they had been through. She thought about the many times they had almost been taken from each other. She thought about the time she had been taken from all of them, through the portal and sent across the universe. Jemma Simmons could survive an alien planet on her own for weeks at a time...but could she survive anymore seconds of not knowing Daisy’s fate? Jemma didn’t know if she was strong enough to survive losing Daisy. 

All heads turned at the noise that came along with Phil Coulson, bursting through the door and into the room. Jemma jumped slightly, startled. “How are they? Are they okay?” He asked, looking around at everyone in the room. Jemma turned her eyes down, checking to make sure the noise hadn’t woken Lily and was not surprised at all to see it hadn’t. Lily had had a lot to handle in the day. Jemma would be surprised if she woke up at all any time before the morning. She realized, then, that she didn’t even know what time it was, even though she had looked at the clock many times over the last few hours. 

“Doctors are still working on Daisy,” May answered quietly as Coulson approached the hospital bed with a frown. 

Phil reached out. He stroked a hand over Jemma’s pulled back hair and down the side of her face, moving it to give the top of her shoulder a squeeze. Jemma silently pressed her lips tightly together and finally mustered up the strength to do things the Brit way - stiff upper lip and the whole nine. Coulson leaned down to hug them both, trying to be careful not to wake Lily. Soon enough, Mack came back with one last chair and Phil settled down into it to join the long wait. 

\--

It was almost two o’clock in the morning when a doctor finally knocked on the door and entered the room. Almost nine hours had passed since they had arrived. Jemma was the first to stir. She carefully disentangled herself from Lily, making sure she didn’t jostle and wake her sleeping daughter. Her movement stirred most of the others from their near-slumbering states, strewn about the uncomfortable hospital chairs. Jemma’s feet came into contact with the ground and she slowly pushed herself fully to her feet, standing next to the bed, afraid to move too far from it since she wasn’t sure she would be able to stand on her own to face this moment and she knew Lily would panic if she woke up without Jemma there. 

The doctor’s face seemed unreadable, the kind of poker face that won millions in Texas Hold ‘Em tournaments. She spotted Lily asleep on the bed and chose to speak softly. “Hello, I’m Doctor Fowler,” She said as she looked around the room as everyone began to rise to their feet and shuffle closer toward Jemma. 

Jemma swallowed hard. Her eyes zeroed in on the doctor’s shoes, the only part of her outfit that she couldn’t change before coming in to speak with them about Daisy. They were splattered with blood. Daisy’s blood. It was clear an attempt had been made to clean them. Jemma’s eyes began to well. 

May was the first one to reach her. She moved an arm around Jemma’s back and looked at the doctor. “Doctor, can you tell us how Daisy is?” she asked when she realized that Jemma couldn’t get past the lump in her throat. 

The doctor’s poker face fell into gloom and Jemma felt the bottom drop out in the pit of her stomach. Her knees weakened and with a simple shuffle of her feet, May was holding most of her weight up. Jemma felt lightheaded. She was sure this was the moment that they were going to learn that Daisy was gone, that her injuries had been too extensive, it had been too much for her to recover from. Jemma trembled in May’s grip and Bobbi appeared at her other side to help support her. 

The team was quiet, huddled close around the hospital bed, protective and anxious. This was her family. Jemma had her parents and her brother, sure, but this, right here, these people, they were her family. They had been with her through so much. They had pulled her back - from the other side of the universe, from her own self destructions, from a life of nothing more than lab reports and paperwork. They had given her everything she had never dreamed a stereotyped ‘brainy’ girl could ever hope to have in her wildest dreams. They had expanded her knowledge of things she never would have thought she could enjoy. They had been through hell with her and for her and she them. And now they were preparing to watch her fall apart right in front of their very eyes. The were preparing, she knew, to rush her from the room when this doctor finally spoke to give them the information, the bad news - the earth-shattering news that Jemma was sure she already knew. She didn’t want to hear it, but she knew that she had to. 

With a long, deep inhale through her nose, Jemma steeled herself against the urge to just collapse. How would she survive? What would she tell Lily when she woke up? Would Lily remember Daisy when she grew up, if Daisy was already gone from her life when she was so young? Would she remember anything of Daisy other than this traumatic day and whatever pictures and videos were left behind? Daisy had feared for so long, the prospect of abandoning her family the way she had felt abandoned by her parents. They had spent long nights talking about it while Lily kicked away at their hands resting on the baby bump that encapsulated her little alien-looking form in the womb. What had Daisy thought about, in those last moments, hidden in the oak tree with Lily? Had she known that Ward was behind the attack? Jemma’s mind was a jumble of questions, of fear. She felt lost with no one to ground her to the present, without Daisy. She found herself wondering if there really was more to life after death, if there was a possibility then, that Daisy may be with Carter. Jemma tried her best to conjure up some form of hope, something to grasp onto that maybe the woman in scrubs in front of her wasn’t about to crush everything about her world. 

Doctor Fowler looked around the faces that stared at her. She took a deep breath, seeming to prepare herself for what she was about to say to them. Jemma and half of those in the room with her held their breath in that moment, until Fowler spoke. 

“My apologies for keeping you waiting so long.” Fowler said. Her eyes found their way back to Jemma’s. It was clear she had to be the wife. “I have some good news,” She said, watching as Jemma’s eyes filled up faster with tears. “But I’m sorry to say that I’ve also got bad news.”


	8. Best Day Ever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Warning:** Imma just preface this with the fact that I'm extremely hormonal and cannot be held accountable for the plethora of emotions spread throughout this chapter............sorrynotsorry and PS nsfw for portions of this. 
> 
>  
> 
> <3 Thank you, as always, for all the love, feedback, kudos and comments! Have a wonderful night feel free to send along greetings, questions and reactions while I'm working on the next chaaaaaaaaap!   
> ;D   
> \---------------------------------------------------------

**_2016 - April_ **

“ _We’re on a mission_!” Jemma’s outraged whisper of protest against Daisy’s ear between hot pants of air was negated seconds later when her eyes roll closed and she buried her face into Daisy’s shoulder in an attempt to stifle a moan. 

“Uh huh,” Daisy replied and Jemma could practically see the smug smirk on her face in her mind’s eye just before Daisy’s tongue and lips clamped down on the thrumming pulse point in her neck. 

“ _We’re in public_ ” Jemma weakly attempted to protest once more. 

Daisy let out a chortle of laughter against her neck. “Yup,” She replied. 

“ _We’ll get caught_ ” Jemma’s arms tightened around Daisy’s shoulders, her fingers dug in to Daisy’s scalp from where they were fisted in her the hair at the back of her head. 

“It’s Vegas,” Daisy laughed. She kept her replies to the barest minimum. She had Jemma pressed back against the floor to ceiling locked door of a restroom stall inside the casino resort. The heavy door had a small ledge about waist high that was meant for purses or bags but it was just wide enough to have set Jemma down on after dragging her into the stall. Daisy’s mouth worked over specific pressure points along Jemma’s neck, like her pulse point, knowing what those did to the currently breathless woman. Daisy had wasted no time when she had found the little ledge to set Jemma down on, her hands had been along Jemma’s inner thighs and beneath the waistband of her panties almost instantly. Her ring and middle finger were buried to the hilt inside the slick folds of Jemma’s center, curling slightly as they pulled out and pushed back in. She rocked her hand whenever she hit that sweet spot that always made Jemma gasp, grinning against the patch of skin she had been nibbling at on her collar as she felt Jemma’s muscles clamp and tighten around her fingers, on their own search for more as the flat part of Daisy’s thumb flitted back and forth and around her clit in time with her fingers. 

When she had first followed Jemma into the restroom and had initiated this steamy, seedy little romp, she had blamed it on Jemma’s dress. She had known Jemma was going to be in something very unlike her normal, practical Jemma Simmons attire, but when she had appeared at Daisy’s side in a shimmering little black dress that barely hung many inches past her hips, Daisy felt justified in the knowledge that she could not be held accountable for the lust that had quickly overpowered what little bit of sensibility she had had. They were on a mission all right…as a couple…in _Vegas_. Daisy had claimed to be adding validity to their covers. 

“Daisy,” Her named came off Jemma’s tongue in a gasp. Daisy felt Jemma’s muscles go rigid, felt her legs pull her in closer, her thighs squeeze around her waist and arm, felt the way Jemma’s nails dug into the back of her scalp. 

“I’ll stop if you want,” Daisy whispered into her ear, the ghost of a chuckle escaping at the end of the suggestion. 

“ _Don’t you dare!_ ” Jemma gasped, pulling Daisy in closer. Daisy quickened her pace and with loud cry that was only stifled when Daisy’s mouth met hers midway through it, Jemma felt herself fall over the edge into the jolting haze and fiery electric shock of pleasure. It rolled through her, snapping her hips hard against Daisy’s wrist as Daisy worked her fingers and thumb to keep the seizures of pleasure spasming from her core to her curled toes, to the nerve endings in the tips of her fingers, which were clenched about Daisy’s shoulders and in her hair, as long as possible. 

Daisy’s hand stilled and she broke their kiss to let them both breathe but left her fingers and hand in place as Jemma came down from the orgasm, muscles still giving off little waves of tremors as they recovered. She kissed a few spots along Jemma’s jaw and nibbled gently at her ear. “I love you,” She whispered as Jemma breathless panted in her ear, trying in vain to catch her breath. 

“Mission,” Jemma reminded her. 

Daisy laughed kissed her a few quick times. “I’m keeping our covers intact,” she reminded, a whisper grazed against Jemma’s lips as she finally relinquished her hold and gently pulled her hand free from under Jemma’s dress. 

Jemma’s brain slowly came back to her through the haze. Her eyes came into focus and landed on the smug, lopsided smirk of victory on Daisy’s lips. Her head tilted slightly to the right as her eyes narrowed. Her grip on Daisy’s shoulders shifted, to push her back slightly. “You don’t think I’m going to let you get away with a stunt like that without a little payback, do you?” 

Daisy was opening her mouth to reply when Jemma leaned forward and brought their lips crashing together in an open mouthed kiss as she slipped off the ledge and let her heel clad feet hit the tile of the floor. She pushed Daisy’s hands away from her hips and broke their kiss. Before Daisy could begin to protest, Jemma had already found her way to her knees and was kissing and nibbling her way up the inside of Daisy’s thigh. Daisy let out a moan on the tail of a sigh and grabbed onto the rail on the side of the stall with one hand and buried the fingers of the other in Jemma’s hair. “ _Fuck_ , you’re dangerous…” she breathed as her heavy-lidded eyes gazed down at Jemma and she licked her lips in hungry anticipation.

\----

“You did _what_!?” Coulson snapped, blinking at the two of them in disbelief. 

Jemma cringed. She was standing just a foot or so behind Daisy, halfway shielded by her body and trying to hide behind her shoulder. She murmured something at the floor from behind Daisy’s shoulder and the only word that was audible really was ‘married.’ 

“ _What were you thinking?!_ ” Coulson stared at them with wide eyes, “You were on a _mission_!” 

Daisy cringed this time. “Volume,” she pressed her temple gently, still nursing the mother of all hangovers. She knew Jemma was hurting from a hangover too, but they had to finish this debriefing before they could leave and get food and caffeine. “We were thinking we were drunk, in Vegas and in love, so we acted impulsively – we’ll figure this personal matter out ourselves, though,” She tossed a file onto his desk in front of him. “This is the information you were looking for on the President’s goon. He’s up to some shady shit.” She pulled a flashdrive from her pocket and sent that sailing on top of the file. “Has the same biometric password as the others but has extra details and schematics for what I thought looks like a scaled down version of the Death Star, but Jem says that’s impossible, so. Anyway, I quadrupled the encryption and made sure there weren’t any back doors on it so it’s safe to access. Now congratulate us already, AC and let us go nurse our hangovers, huh?” She arched her eyebrows at him and sent a sideways glance over her shoulder at Jemma, who looked positively mortified that she was being reprimanded by an authority figure – and _Coulson_ , no less! - for something like this.

Coulson looked at the file and flashdrive and then lifted his eyes to look at Daisy and Jemma. He exhaled a sigh. “This is what you want?” He asked, lifting his hand and pointing a lazy finger back and forth between the two of them. Jemma and Daisy’s relationship since around the holidays had been no secret. Fitz was only just starting to act almost normal around them again, in fact. He had given Jemma the silent treatment for almost an entire month, and then he had started constant fights and endless progressions of passive aggressive feuds with her in the lab for the two months following that. When she had first told him, he actually had turned on his heel, left the room, found Daisy in the training room with Bobbi and tried to take a swing at her. 

Daisy turned her head and arched her eyebrows slightly. Jemma felt entirely bashful. She nodded, but buried her face into the back of Daisy’s shoulder and neck as her face heated up. Daisy smiled a bit. “Yeah,” she nodded and looked at Coulson again. “If we decide it’s not, then we’ll take care of what we need to take care of,” she assured, squeezing Jemma’s hand, both of which were wrapped tightly around one of Daisy’s. 

Coulson nodded. “You could have at least warned us so we could have thrown a party,” He relented. 

Jemma let out a startled laugh and Daisy grinned. “AC, if you want to throw us a party, by all means-,” 

“Ugggggh,” Jemma groaned. “Just give us a couple weeks to recover…” She murmured into Daisy’s shoulder, which shook slightly when Daisy laughed. 

“Thank you for your work,” Coulson said as he opened the file. “The kitchen was just restocked if you want to go and make yourselves something to eat and settle back in.” He told them and then looked up and added with a small smile. “Congratulations, ladies – my first question, is whose last name are you going to use?” He smirked. Daisy and Jemma blinked and looked over at him. They glanced at each other, but neither answered. Coulson chuckled. “Well, at least you have time to think about it?” He shook his head at them. “Get out of here,” His voice had returned to its paternal jesting tone. He shook his head and laughed as Daisy led Jemma towards the door. “By _Elvis_?” He murmured. “Really?” 

\-----

“We are never going to live this down…” Jemma sighed. Their hangovers were gone, technically and the two of them were lying in bed together in the large dorm-like room they had jointly moved into together only a month before. 

“The more upset you get when they tease you, the more they’ll do it,” Daisy said as she leaned forward and kissed the back of Jemma’s shoulder, using the arm she had around her to pull her back tighter to her chest. Jemma sighed again. Daisy was quiet for a long moment before she spoke again to finally ask a question. “Do you want to undo it?” She asked. “Because, we can if you’re unhappy-,” 

Jemma rolled over, causing Daisy to shift about a bit since they had been tangled up together. “We will do no such thing!” She said. “I love you and you can’t just take back vows!” She declared. Daisy arched her eyebrows just as Jemma was adding. “ _Especially_ not when those vows were officiated by _The King_ , Daisy.” She deadpanned. 

Daisy let out a startled burst of laughter. Her hands came up to frame Jemma’s face. “I fucking love you,” She laughed before she pulled Jemma, who was laughing at her reaction, in and kissed her with gusto.

\----  
 ** _2016 – October_**

“Are we seriously having this conversation?” Daisy asked in exasperation. 

“Yes,” Jemma answered defiantly. 

“Like, _right now_ , Jem, really?” Daisy queried again. 

“ _Yes_.” 

“Don’t you think there’s a more appropriate time and pl-,”

“You can’t avoid the conversation forever, Daisy!” Jemma frowned as she said it. 

“Jem,” Daisy sighed. “I’m just saying that right now-,” 

“It’s as good a time as any, if not more so because of the circumstances,” Jemma interrupted. 

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation right now-,” Daisy’s murmurs were interrupted by Jemma again. 

“We wouldn’t have to have this conversation under such duress if you would just talk to me and tell me how you feel about it!” Jemma was exasperated this time. 

“We’ve only been married for…” Daisy paused a moment. “Six months, Jem,” she pointed out. On top of that, they hadn’t even been together for a full year just yet. 

“So?” Jemma asked. 

“Your parents are still wigged out,” Daisy added. 

“Their opinion on our relationship has been noted and filed away in the _Look-how-much-I-don’t-give-a-shit_ filing bin until they grow up and get over themselves.” Jemma replied. 

Daisy laughed. “I love you,” she said with a sigh. 

“I love you too.” Jemma replied, though the irritation was still present in her tone. “And yet you _still_ won’t talk to me about it. We talk about everything else, why is this so different?” 

“Jem, I really need to concentrate on this,” Daisy replied, hesitant and distracted. 

“ _Daisy Simmons_ ,” Jemma scolded. “The future of-,”

“I love it when you scold me by my full name,” Daisy interrupted; trying to focus on the task she was working on while also trying to deflect from the personal question Jemma had asked. 

“Daisy! I’m serious-,” 

“ _Jemma_ , I am _literally_ laying under a three-story tall mechanized weapon that can level the eastern seaboard from Maine to Georgia in…” She paused and looked at the timer. “ _Six minutes and fourteen seconds_ if I don’t finish dismantling it. I love you. You are everything. _Of course_ I want to have a family with you! I’m fucking terrified so I’m sorry if that’s making me revert back to my usual comedic deflection coping mechanism – I’m kinda stressed out right now.” 

Jemma was silent for a moment, happy for a partial answer, but guilty for prodding when she knew Daisy was in a pretty dire situation at the moment. She asked Daisy a couple of questions about the task, which she had been walking Daisy through a few moments earlier before she went back to the personal topic. “I’m sorry, I know weapons are scary, it just seemed like a good idea to ask now when…well you’re dismantling-,”

“Shit..." Daisy sighed.

"Are you alright?" Jemma asked immediately.

"Jem..." Daisy chuckled. "I’m not terrified of the weapon,” she said as she finished working on the circuitry of the trigger with the tablet she had hooked up to it to get the weapon to the point of being rendered inert.

Jemma frowned to herself. "...You're afraid of having a family with me?" She asked, trying to mask the sadness the statement caused her.

"What?" Daisy was startled from her focus. "Jem, no. I'm..." Daisy fell quiet a moment until the timer on the weapon beeped and then started counting at double speed. "Shit," Daisy exhaled.

"Daisy?"

"Baby, I love you, but the time table sped up so, I need you to..."

"Be quiet. Right." Jemma said. "I love you." She added a moment later.

\----

Daisy’s mind kept wandering, even hours later, after the weapon had been rendered inert, after the teams had gone in to completely disassemble and scatter its contents. Finally, she had made it back to the base. She had barely had time to unload her gear before Jemma had come into the hangar bay, stopped and stared at her a moment and then had come jogging for her. Daisy had just enough time to open her arms and catch Jemma before her girlfr - ...wife, before her _wife_ \- had thrown her arms around her and pulled her in for a bear hug. 

“Hey,” Daisy kissed the side of her head and squeezed her back, leaning her nose into the hair at the back crook of Jemma’s neck and shoulder, she inhaled her scent and counted to four in her head, _one...two...three….four_ , the length of time that had been remaining on the clock when the weapon had finally been disabled. 

Jemma pulled back, cupped the side of Daisy’s face with each of her hands and pulled her down for a kiss. Daisy counted off in her head again, _one...two...three….four…_. 

“I’m okay,” Daisy whispered when Jemma broke the kiss and bear hugged her again. 

“I know,” Jemma exhaled a choppy breath and held on. 

“We should talk,” Daisy whispered. Jemma nodded against her shoulder but averted her eyes when she pulled back. Daisy kissed her temple and kept her arm around Jemma’s waist. Without another word, she turned them and started on the long trek back to their room. As soon as the door was shut, Jemma had backed her against it and smashed their mouths together. In a flurry of hurried activity, they started tearing pieces of clothing from each other on their shuffling trek toward the bed between breathless, ‘I love you’s. 

Now, sometime later, Daisy lay with Jemma curled up in her arms, unable to sleep. She kept her count going. Four seconds. All the things she would miss in those seconds. Four seconds. The soft hum of Jemma’s rhythmic exhales in her sleep. One, two, three four. The way Jemma rambled off on scientific tangents when the fact that someone was making a joke sailed right over her head only to trail off midway through realization dawning on her. One, two, three, four. All the times she had come _this_ close to dying on a mission and never seeing Jemma’s smile again or feeling her arms around her. One, two, three four. Four seconds. It had been the only thing standing between Daisy being in this bed currently with Jemma, or Jemma and the team planning some form of memorial service and adding her name laser etched into a wall somewhere. Four seconds. One. Two. Three. Four seconds. There never seemed to be enough time anymore for anything other than pure luck.

Jemma stirred in her sleep, as if she could feel the restlessness in Daisy next to her. Her lips came into contact with Daisy’s collar. “What’s wrong?” She asked, her tone groggy and voice thick with sleep. She stretched against Daisy’s side, to crack some joints and then cuddled right back up into the spots along Daisy’s side and shoulder where she seemed to perfectly fit. Daisy kissed the top of her head and moved her fingers through Jemma’s hair. 

“Are you serious?” Daisy murmured quietly against the top of Jemma’s head. Jemma leaned back to look at her, confusion etched across her face. “About wanting kids, I mean,” she explained. 

Jemma turned her eyes down toward Daisy’s chin. She shrugged her shoulders a bit and tried to play it off. “Yeah,” She nodded. “I mean...but not if you don’t want-,” 

“I’m not afraid of starting a family with you,” Daisy spoke quietly. “I want you to be happy. I want to be happy with you.” She waited for Jemma’s eyes to reach hers. “...I’m afraid of not making it home to any of you…” 

\----  
 ** _2016 – December_**

“Well, your parents certainly like me now,” Daisy murmured as they walked through the streets of London after taking the tube from Jemma’s parents’ place into an area of the city’s center. They were supposed to be meeting Jemma’s brother, Arthur, for lunch. So far, their trip home to visit Jemma’s family had been a bigger success than Daisy had thought it would be. 

“Yes, well,” Jemma said as she walked with Daisy, nestled up against her side, and arm around Daisy’s waist and Daisy’s wrapped around her shoulder. “I gather they’re happy we told them _beforehand_ that they will potentially be grandparents in the next few years,” She said before she kissed Daisy’s cheek. 

Daisy chuckled. “I’m sure also they’re excited Elvis will have no involvement in the affair,” She teased, grinning at the way the comment made Jemma’s head tip back slightly as she laughed. 

“I dunno…” She said in a singsong tone. “’Elvis,’ would make a rather charming name for a boy…” she teased. 

Daisy laughed. “So you _want_ them to hate me, is that it?” She said right before she turned and kissed the side of Jemma’s head. 

“Bloody hell! Never thought I’d see the day you looked so smitten you resemble the happy ending of a cheesy romantic comedy!” 

Jemma stood up straighter when she saw the owner of the voice, her brother Arthur, just a few yards in front of them. A broad smile stretched over her face, even though it wasn’t the first time she had seen her brother since they had come to town for their visit a few days ago. “Oh, stop your jealous whining and give me a hug, you big oaf!” She retorted, letting go of Daisy and leaning up on her toes when the pair reached Arthur so she could hug him. With a laugh and a grunt, Arthur hoisted Jemma off her feet in a big bear hug and then set her back down. He was a foot taller than her, but they shared the same eyes, nose, chin and mouth. Their hair color matched almost identically, though Arthur’s was much shorter – he had told Daisy he couldn’t handle the curls it had to it so short hair it was. Had he grown it out longer, Daisy was sure they could have passed for fraternal twins, though his jaw was just a bit more angled than Jemma’s. 

Arthur was also emphatically not a scientist, but Daisy discovered he was just about as smart as his younger sister. They were aged just about two full years apart. Arthur was a lawyer – a career he launched into after his professional football career was sidelined at eighteen by a rather gnarly knee injury he had sustained in a playoff match, according to Jemma. Daisy had met Arthur before this trip, though it had been through Skype and facetime phone calls. Arthur had a rather bitchin’ vinyl collection and he and Daisy had spent long hours talking about it, Daisy having hijacked numerous video calls between Arthur and Jemma, to go on long conversations about music, to the point that Jemma made jokes about finally understanding how people found her science tangents confusing. 

“Your turn, rockstar!” Arthur cheered, just before he suddenly hoisted Daisy off her feet in a similar bear hug after letting Jemma go. Jemma laughed as Daisy let out a startled sound and threw her arms around Arthur with a laugh to say hello before he put her down. 

Daisy feigned dizziness. “Shit, I think you gave me altitude sickness,” She joked. 

Arthur laughed and wrapped an arm around each of their shoulders. “Come on then, let’s have you pay for my lunch so I can find out what nefarious secret plans I’m being recruited for,” He turned toward the door of the restaurant Arthur had chosen and let their shoulders go so he could pull the door open and motion for them to head through. Jemma slipped her hand into Daisy’s, giving it a nervous squeeze as she led the way inside. 

“So!” Arthur clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “What’s all the hubbub, then, that you need to butter me up for?” He arched his eyebrows. They had been seated in a quite booth in a corner, Arthur on one side and Daisy and Jemma settled together on the other. They had already placed their orders and had their first round of drinks. 

“Really, Arthur,” Jemma rolled her eyes and shook her head. “We don’t _have_ to have ulterior motives to take you to lunch.”

“Except in this particular case, we do have them,” Daisy pointed out with a smirk. She could see Jemma had suddenly become very bashful about the somewhat serious nature of the topic they were here to discuss with her brother so Daisy reached over and settled her hand down on Jemma’s knee. 

Arthur laughed. “All right, all right, lay it on me. What is it, then, this proposal of yours?” He arched his eyebrows between them both and lifted his pint of beer for a sip. 

Jemma had insisted on being the one to ask since it was her brother and since she would have been able to answer the medical questions surrounding it with more ease than Daisy. Daisy had been a-okay with this severely awkward idea since it meant she had the easy job of sitting there and squeezing Jemma’s knee to give her reassurances. 

“Okay, well,” Jemma cleared her throat. “See…it’s somewhat complicated, but not extremely, though it might be a bit awkward, so just know up front that if you want to say no, you absolutely can,” She rambled with a wave of her hand. “No pressure. See, we…Daisy and I…we’ve decided, to, um,” Jemma’s cheeks and ears had turned so many shades of red, Daisy was having trouble not chuckling at her sudden shift into embarrassment. 

Arthur’s eyebrows were arched up his forehead, his mouth slightly open and his eyes squinting every so often as his head slowly bobbed up and down with Jemma’s rambles, clearly confused but patiently waiting for the punchline. 

“Daisy and you…” Arthur nodded, trying to encourage Jemma to spit it out. 

“Yes, Daisy and I, we’ve decided that, well…,” Jemma’s hand fell onto Daisy’s hand that was on her knee, clutching at it as she tried to find the words she had practiced for _weeks_ before this trip. “We’ve, erm…we want to…start a family.” 

Arthur’s face morphed into a joyful beaming grin. “That’s fantastic!” Daisy loved the way words like that rolled off their tongues with their accent. He nearly knocked over his beer as he stood up and leaned over the table to gather them into a laugh-filled hug. “ _Uncle Arthur_ , has a lovely ring to it, yeah?” He said as he sat back down and steadied his glass. 

Jemma smiled, but her face and ears were still heated with embarrassment. “Right, yes,” She nodded. “It’s wonderful,” She smiled over at Daisy, but gave Daisy’s hand a pinching squeeze when she realized Daisy thought her embarrassment was amusing. Daisy made a face. Jemma looked back over at Arthur, who was still smiling proudly over on the other side of the booth, thinking about being an uncle. “So, we wanted to speak with you today…over lunch…about, erm…” Jemma just couldn’t do it! Yes, it was a scientific inquiry! But this was her _brother_! She didn’t think about certain things when it came to her _brother_! No one did! How was she supposed to ask??

Daisy couldn’t help but find this turn in Jemma’s confidence on the matter completely adorable and amusing. She completely understood how awkward this was, so she decided to swoop in and give Jemma a reprieve. She turned to look at Arthur with a lopsided smirk and said, “We’re gonna need your sperm, dude,” just as Arthur was taking a drink from his pint.

Arthur inhaled a bit of his beer and Jemma’s hands flew out to keep his glass from spilling over as he coughed and tried to set it down. Daisy couldn’t help it as she snickered. Jemma shot her a frown. Arthur began to laugh as the liquid cleared his lungs and his coughs died down. 

“It’s not funny! I was trying to be serious with this conversation!” Jemma frowned at them. 

Arthur laughed again. Daisy fought to keep her face straight. “Babe, I know, but the Band-Aid had to be ripped off. The slow removal of Band-Aids can bring down the mightiest of empires,” She smiled innocently over at Jemma. 

Arthur wiped a tear of laughter from his cheek and cleared his throat, patting his chest lightly. “In all my life,” He said as the last of his laughter died on an amused hum of an exhale. “No one has ever requested my swimmers in such a manner,” He grinned. 

Jemma cringed and dropped her face into her hands. This was _so_ awkward!! 

“There’s a lot of science-y stuff they would do with it, before we used it,” Daisy said after wrapping her arm around Jemma’s shoulders. “I’m sure Jem would be happy to explain it once she stops feeling squeamish about discussing the contents of your nut sack with you, Art.” She quipped. 

Jemma let out a groan into Daisy’s shoulder as Arthur laughed again. Daisy turned and kissed the top of Jemma’s head. “C’mon, Jem – we’re all family here!” She joked. 

Jemma groaned again. “Must you make this all sound so incestuous?” she sighed, though when she managed to peek out from her hands, there was a small, anxious smile on her face. 

“Science-y stuff?” Arthur asked, still giving them both a cheeky grin as he arched his eyebrows. 

Jemma nodded, her ears flushing red again. “Yes, well, it’s rather complicated,” She launched into a long ramble about Mitochondrial DNA and swapping out bits of Arthur’s to add bits of Jemma’s in before there would be all kinds of interesting things having to do with Daisy’s ovaries, eggs and what not. Arthur nodded as he listened and Daisy let Jemma go on long enough for the redness in her cheeks and ears to fade. 

“So, basically,” Daisy said, giving Jemma another reprieve as Jem leaned into her side and Daisy gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Jem and the team would need a sample of your dudes to tinker on the DNA and add hers in so she can join it with my egg.” 

“In simple terms, yes,” Jemma nodded. 

Arthur looked back and forth between them. He held off on commenting a moment as their plates of food arrived. They thanked the server and then Arthur looked between them again. “And who’s going to carry the little bugger?” He asked as he picked up his knife and fork to dig into his food. 

Daisy gave Jemma’s shoulders a squeeze and let go so that they could both pick up their utensils to eat. Jemma grabbed her fork and knife after setting her napkin in her lap. “We decided that I would,” Jemma answered. 

Arthur smiled. “Yeah?” 

Jemma gave him a quizzical look. “Yes, why?” 

Arthur chuckled. “Seems like it’d be a bit hard for you to do all your science-y things once you’re incubating your specimen,” He grinned. 

“We made a very informed decision on who of the two of us would best be suited-,

“We flipped a coin,” Daisy interrupted. Arthur threw his head back and laughed. 

“We needed an unbiased decider!” Jemma insisted, which made Arthur laugh harder as Daisy leaned over and kissed Jemma’s shoulder with a smile. 

“This is _fantastic_ , bloody fantastic,” Arthur chuckled. 

“Does that mean you’ll do it?” Daisy asked.

Arthur picked up his glass and raised it in toast. “Count me and my boys in!” He said. Jemma cringed but picked up her glass and clinked it with Daisy’s and Arthur’s in toast, finally relaxing into a smile as they settled in to discuss everything for the rest of their meal. 

\-----  
 ** _2017 – July 2nd_**

Daisy was holding firmly onto Jemma’s hand, sitting in the doctor’s office in a wing of the hospital on a stool next to the propped up exam table while they waited for the doctor to return with their test results. Jemma’s head was turned away, looking out towards the window of the office with a faraway expression on her face. Daisy reached out and stroked her fingers along Jemma’s hair before she lifted the hand she was holding and kissed the backs of her knuckles. “We knew this was possible,” She said, trying to speak as gently as she could as she brought the back of Jemma’s hand in to rest against her chest and held it there. “It could just be a fluke, right? Not all of them worked, but...maybe,” She tried to sound hopeful. Truthfully, the last seven months had been difficult, missions aside, trying to get the IVF embryo implants to work, to take. The doctors had repeatedly warned them each time that it was entirely possible they could end up with multiples, but no such luck. 

In February, they had made it to the first attempt. Two embryos had been implanted. Neither took. Their second attempt wasn’t until the very beginning of May. Three were implanted this time, and one of them took – Daisy had never seen anyone so happy that they cried before the day that Jemma had come bursting out of their bathroom with one of the positive tests in her hands and had nearly tackled Daisy into a hug. A day later their doctor had confirmed the pregnancy with a blood test. Three weeks after that, in the middle of dinner with the team at the base, the cramps had struck her, followed almost immediately by the blood spotting. At the hospital a few hours after that, the miscarriage had been confirmed. 

Daisy had never seen Jemma so listless as the days following the miscarriage. Even after she had returned through the portal, Jemma hadn’t been as much of a shadow of herself a she had been then. She had messed up multiple tests in the lab, had zoned out on Fitz and Bobbi numerous times. She moved robotically around the base and when she was with Daisy. So Daisy had taken her on a trip. They had gone to Hawaii, to be away from all of their normal daily routines. They had had some epic fights during their trip – but they had also had some pretty epic make up sex for it too. 

When they had returned, they had come to the decision that they would continue on with their plan to try one more time. They had five frozen embryos remaining. The decision had been made to implant four of them, to see if any, or, on the off chance, all would take or not. It had been just about two weeks since they had done the implantation. Hours ago, in the middle of the night, Daisy had woken up when she heard Jemma groaning in her sleep only to find Jemma, covered in sweat. When Daisy had drawn the covers to wake Jemma, she had been greeted with the ghastly sight of blood covering Jemma’s thighs and their bed. 

Daisy had wrapped Jemma back up in their covers and rushed her to the hospital. They had been there since, waiting for what both were sure was simply confirmation that the implants had failed. Daisy felt lost on how to get Jemma through this. Jemma closed her eyes, a lone tear escaping down her cheek as she flinched at Daisy’s words as if physically wounded by them. Her grip on Daisy’s hand tightened, though.

With a slow inhale of air, Jemma turned her head on the pillow and looked over at Daisy, who reached her free hand up to gently wipe the tear off her cheek. “What if something’s wrong with me…?” she asked. 

Daisy blinked. “What?” she exhaled in a whisper. 

Jemma looked down at her free hand, where it was resting flat against her stomach on top of the covers. Her hand gripped the material beneath it for a moment as her eyes welled further. “There _has_ to be something wrong with me – something…something I missed, somewhere…for it to happen again,” She sniffled as her brow furrowed in confusion.

Daisy felt the moment her breath was knocked out of her by the things Jemma said, the tears on her face and the determination that she had somehow done something or that something was wrong with her. “Jemma…” she stood up from the stool, pressing Jemma’s hand tighter to her chest and reaching out to cup the side of her face. “There’s nothing wrong with you-,” 

“There has-,” 

“No, Jem, there doesn’t.” Daisy wouldn’t let Jemma insist something was wrong with her again. “We don’t even…” She frowned and let Jemma’s hand go so she could use both of hers to gently wipe away Jemma’s tears. “We don’t know what the doctor’s gonna say, Jem,” She tried her best to hold onto some little bit of hope for the both of them as Jemma held tightly onto a fistful of the front of her hoodie. She kissed Jemma’s forehead and pulled her in close and held tightly onto her. Daisy didn’t know how the conversation was going to go, if this really ended in the doctor saying that the implants didn’t take, when Daisy suggested that they stop and look into adoption instead. It had been an option they had discussed, one that Jemma had actually been very fond of, but had wanted one baby that was a combination of the two of them. Daisy wasn’t sure she could watch Jemma try and go through this again. 

The door to the room opened and the doctor cleared her throat. Jemma sniffled and leaned her head back. Daisy kissed her forehead again before she stood up, once again reaching out to reclaim Jemma’s hand with both of her own. 

“Hey, Doc,” Daisy said when she realized Jemma couldn’t quite speak. She squeezed Jemma’s hand. “What’s the verdict?” She found it difficult to keep her own voice steady, but she managed, mostly. 

“I’m sorry I had to keep you waiting so long,” Doctor Terrell said as she came further into the room. She held the file up. “I have some good news, but I'm sorry to say, I've got some bad news too. I wanted to get a better review of the ultrasound the emergency room technicians took when you first came in while waiting for the blood work, that's what kept me from coming to talk either you sooner,” She approached the exam table and stood on the other side of the one Daisy stood on.

“And?” Daisy asked. Jemma’s eyes were locked on the doctor, but the defeated, drawn look on her face showed that she had lost all sense of hope of hearing anything resembling good news. 

“I was hoping you would be willing to let me do one more ultrasound – a precautionary measure…?” The doctor asked. 

Jemma’s shoulders slumped. She hung her head towards her stomach and didn’t answer until a squeeze from Daisy’s hand told her that the decision was hers. Jemma acquiesced with an exhausted nod and a frown. The doctor dimmed the lights in the room and started to prepare the machine, pulling gloves on and reaching for the covers Jemma had been holding. Soon enough her stomach was covered in gel and the doctor was at work.   
Jemma couldn’t bring herself to look at the monitor. Daisy brought her hand to stroke along Jemma’s hair and kissed the side of her head. “I love you,” she whispered while the machine buzzed. She leaned down and wrapped an arm around Jemma when her shoulders start to tremble. Jemma leaned her face into its usual spot in the crook of her neck against her collarbone almost instantly and sniffled. Daisy turned her head down and kissed the top of her head. Her own eyes welled with unshed tears as she turned her head to the side and looked at the blurry gray screen the doctor was looking at as she moved the wand around Jemma’s stomach. 

Doctor Terrell seemed focus on a particular area. She pressed a few specific buttons on the machine and then moved the wand just slightly so the area she was searching for was in the middle of the screen. She turned to look at Jemma and Daisy. Daisy was the only one looking at her as she turned the corners of her mouth up slightly. Daisy blinked at the woman in confusion. The doctor, who had been working with the women on this for months, before they had ever asked Arthur about his donation to the cause and she had a bit of an attachment to them. Usually when they came into the office, they were full of enthusiasm and she had seen the way they always looked at each other, always supported each other, even when they were squabbling about something. Doctor Terrell nodded toward the machine screen, as if to tell Daisy that she needed to look again. 

Daisy turned her eyes to the machine and realized what the little blip on the screen the doctor was focused on was and spoke almost immediately. “Jem,” She breathed her wife’s name. Jemma sniffled and Daisy leaned back, staring at the screen. “Jemma, look,” She stroked her hand over Jemma’s hair and left her hand resting against the back of her head. “…i-is that…?” Daisy was afraid to even ask the doctor as Jemma turned her head just barely enough to look at the screen, leaving her head against Daisy’s shoulder.   
Doctor Terrell nodded and broke into a smile. 

“What…?” Jemma asked, unsure if she were willing to let herself believe the insinuation. 

“We ran the blood work through three times to be sure,” Doctor Thomas said. “The emergency room techs were a bit rushed in their search with the ultrasound, so I wanted to give you extra confirmation,” She paused as she looked at them both. 

Jemma looked stunned and still in a bit of disbelief. “But…all the…the bleeding-,”

Doctor Terrell nodded. “Unfortunately, that’s where the bad news comes in. After the first two tries, it’s far, far too early to say you’re out of the woods yet, of course, but it looks like this little champ is the one that wanted to stick around. ” She said and then paused another moment before she asked. “…Would you like a picture of your baby?”

Jemma let out a sob, unable to hold it back as her hand came up to cover her mouth and she turned her face into Daisy’s shoulder and let the tears come freely from all the pent up emotions. Daisy stared at the little blob of gray that looked more like a gray lima bean than anything else right then. Jemma’s hands fisted into her sweatshirt and Daisy ignored the shed tear or two that escaped her eyes. She turned her head down and repeatedly kissed the top and side of Jemma’s head. She nodded to Doctor Terrell, who had already set about grabbing them a couple of pictures from the image on the screen.

Daisy kissed the top of Jemma’s head again and turned to look at the screen. One was all they needed and one was what they had. “Jem,” She leaned back as Jemma looked at the screen, but still held onto Daisy as if letting go would somehow change what the doctor said. Jemma just nodded and Daisy kissed the side of her head once more.

After a long few minutes, Doctor Terrell cleaned up Jemma’s stomach and tucked the covers back around her after setting her hospital gown back into place. “I’ll go and get those pictures for you, give you a few minutes alone. When I come back, we’ll discuss the rest of our plan, okay?” She asked. Daisy nodded and the doctor left the room. 

Daisy leaned back and reached for Jemma’s face, cupping a hand on either side of it. Tears welled up in her eyes as she smiled, even as she wiped at the tears on Jemma’s cheeks. She leaned over and brought their lips together. There was still a lot to worry about and Daisy knew that would be the case for this whole pregnancy, until the end but for now...there was relief. Jemma’s arms snaked around her neck and pulled her in to hold on tight. Daisy wrapped an arm around Jemma’s shoulders and let her other hand drop to the flat of Jemma’s stomach, as if the touch might do anything to keep the little bean shaped baby content enough to stay with them. They held onto each other, murmuring to each other through sniffles and startled nervous, little chuckles, exchanging short, reassuring kisses while they waited for the doctor to return. 

Doctor Terrell determined that she wanted to keep Jemma checked into the hospital for observation. Jemma was moved into another wing of the hospital to be checked in and she and Daisy settled in for a long day. It wasn’t until after dinner, when May, Bobbi and Coulson had come by to bring them some food and check on them, had left, that Jemma noticed it. She and Daisy were curled up on the bed, looking through the printouts of the ultrasound that the doctor had given them when Jemma had gasped suddenly. 

“What?! What’s wrong!?” Daisy had started to get up, but Jemma grabbed her arm and stopped her. 

Eyes wide, Jemma looked over at Daisy, looking ashamed. “Daisy!” She gasped and then blurted, “Happy birthday!” all in a rush. 

Daisy’s shoulders slumped in relief that nothing was wrong and then she fell into a fit of giggles. She leaned in and stole a few quick kisses before leaving her forehead pressed against Jemma’s. 

“I’m sorry! I didn’t forget, I swear! I had a whole day planned and I have a gift for you and-,” 

Daisy cut Jemma off with another small kiss. “Jem,” she said with a small smile and settled her hand on Jemma’s stomach for possibly the thousandth time that day. “Trust me, this is the best gift, I’ve ever…” She shook her head and exhaled a soft sigh as Jemma’s hand landed on top of hers. “Best Day Ever…” she said with a smile. Jemma lifted her free hand to Daisy’s cheek before she leaned up to concede her agreement with another kiss.


	9. Gentle, Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Forewarning:** To give you an idea of emotion, I basically sat with the following songs on repeat while typing this:  
>  Tegan & Sara - I Can't Take It  
> Sarah McLachlan - Do What You Have To Do  
> A Great Big World - Say Something  
> Chris Stills - When The Pain Dies Down  
> annnnd Fisher - I Will Love You 
> 
> so...yes. Prepare thy heartstrings...  
> \--  
> as always, thannnnnk you thank you thank you times infinity for the kudos, comments and feedback! <3 you guys!!  
> \---------------------------

Jemma lost track of time. She had sunk down into one of the chairs next to the bed Lily was sleeping in after Doctor Terrell finished her conversation with them and left to do the rest of her rounds. Her eyes were welled over, which felt like a permanent new change, really by this point. She was just stunned enough, she supposed, to keep herself from dissolving into a sobbing mess. The room was quiet, and not just because parts of Jemma’s brain were shutting down so she could start to compartmentalize the situation. The worst part of having the knowledge base she had was knowing a vast majority of the big words for Daisy’s condition that the doctor had used. Despite the fact that she had this knowledge, she had listened to every dumbed down explanation the doctor used to explain Daisy’s condition to her and felt each and every gutshot that the laundry list of injuries delivered. Now she just felt stunned and numb.

“Simmons,” Fitz was the first to try and speak. Jemma heard him but she was staring blankly at the floor without actually seeing it at the moment. “Jemma,” He stepped around the hospital bed to get closer to her and put his hand on her shoulder, but she didn’t move from her spot. A tear or two streaked down her cheeks but she was so used to the sensation at this point that she didn’t bother reaching up to wipe them away.

Daisy was not dead. Jemma felt like she could feel the palpable but unspoken, ‘ _Yet_.’ That was the good news that Doctor Terrell had brought them. The rest, as far as Jemma was concerned, was bad news. Daisy was currently in an induced coma. The doctor did not know how long she would need to keep her in the forced medicated state. Because of a combination of the induced coma, her rib fractures and having to repair her punctured lung, Daisy was currently also hooked up to a mechanical ventilator. Two of her ribs had required surgery as well to correct the fractures since they had needed to be secured back into proper place. Multiple areas around the orbital floor and medial wall of her eye and cheekbone had been fractured. Those had required surgery to fix in order to keep bone fragments from floating around in her face/skull. The opposite side of her cranium from the eye fractures held a handful of linear fractures, indicating - per Doctor Terrell - that her head had bounced off of something after she had been hit along the cheek. There was no way to go in and fix the skull fractures as they would heal on their own and - the only other good news thus far - Daisy’s brain was not bleeding, though they were keeping a very close watch on it to make sure this didn’t change. If it did, surgery would be necessary to go in and relieve any built up pressure immediately.

Two bullets had actually caught Daisy while she was running through the woods, one had torn through flesh and muscle but missed the bone in her right upper arm, the other had grazed her outer left thigh. They hadn’t damaged any arteries, and had required eight stitches between the two of them. Daisy’s liver had also sustained damage in the accident and fight, it had a grade two laceration. They had managed to go in and contain the bleeding but were still watching to make sure it didn’t rupture open again. Throughout her face and torso there were numerous contusions - from the seat belt at the force of impact, from the broken glass and twisted metal, etc. All told, aside from the bullet holes, she had seven different sites that had needed anywhere from five to twelve stitches each. With all the blood loss, she had needed numerous transfusions and they were still administering those currently.

The Doctor couldn’t give them a definitive answer either way when Coulson had asked if Daisy would live. All she had said was, _”She’s fighting...but she’s not out of the woods yet, and she’s got a long way to go to get there._ ” Doctor Terrell had left shortly after that statement and the hollow pit in Jemma’s stomach had consumed her.

“Simmons-,” Fitz started to say her name again, reaching out to touch Jemma’s shoulder.  
Fitz’s grip on her shoulder did nothing to shake her from the daze she was in right then. Jemma felt like she was experiencing this moment from far away. Everything seemed muffled. She knew the others were talking, or attempting to talk. She could hear it, distantly. The sound of her heart pounding a fearfully brutal pulse out through her veins overshadowed the murmured voices. It was the sound of Lily whimpering from the hospital bed she had been sleeping in that broke the dazed spell Jemma had succumbed.

All adult eyes turned to the bed, where Lily was sitting up, looking around at all the familiar faces she could see, clutching onto her stuffed monkey, her mouth turned down into a frown and her face drawn in anxiety and fear. Her eyes were welled and she whimpered again, too afraid to actually call for either of her moms, worried that she would get neither of them because they were gone. The whimpers came from her just as she had started to breathe erratically, her body already preparing to cry.

Jemma blinked as soon as she heard the first one. Her hands automatically reached to her face to wipe off her cheeks as she was already rushing to her feet. “Lily,” She said her daughter’s name as she pushed around Fitz and leaned over the side of the bed. “It’s okay, darling, I’m right here,” she spoke in a calm and quiet tone, trying her best to sound as soothing as possible as her hand rested on top of Lily’s head and then stroked down her hair as she leaned over to kiss her forehead. “It’s all right, honey,” She assured. Lilly immediately scrambled to wrap her arms around Jemma’s neck and moved to try and wrap herself around Jemma. Jemma scooped her up and moved to climb back into the bed, stroking a hand over her hair and along her back. She kissed the side of her head and rocked gently with her. “I know, sweetheart, I’m sorry you couldn’t see me. I won’t go anywhere, I’m going to stay right here with you, okay?” She said when Lily had whimpered again into her shoulder. Lily nodded and Jemma kissed the side of her head again.

The room was silent while Jemma rocked Lily and eventually managed to get her back to sleep. She stayed put this time, sitting in the hospital bed with its back propped and holding onto her sleeping daughter. She knew they were waiting for her to speak. Jemma wanted to demand to see Daisy, but doing so would mean that she had to bring Lily with her since Lily was clearly showing the beginning signs of separation anxiety and there was no telling yet what other issues her daughter would have to go through as a result of what had happened. Jemma didn’t want to add to that with seeing her mother hooked up to machines in the ICU. She wondered briefly if that would be better than what Lily had seen of Daisy out in the woods. She didn’t know, and she didn’t know how she was supposed to navigate this situation. Jemma felt lost.

“Where is Ward?” Jemma finally asked when she did speak. All eyes turned to her. Jemma waited, but no one answered right away. “Well?” Jemma asked, demanded even. “Where is he? Is he alive?”

Bobbi, Hunter, Mack, Fitz and May seemed to have no answers for her. Coulson, however, was staring at her with an unreadable expression, as if weighing whether or not he wanted to give her the answer. Jemma fixed her eyes on Coulson’s, staring him down. She set her jaw as Coulson swallowed and stepped closer to the bed.

“He’s alive,” Coulson finally said, which brought the others’ eyes from the floor to the back of Coulson’s head and then to Jemma. “This is the closest medical center to the extraction site,” He added, knowing it was what she wanted to ask.

Jemma’s eyes never left Coulson’s until the moment he confirmed that Ward was in the same hospital as her possibly dying wife and her traumatized daughter. She set her jaw a moment and took a few steadying breaths. The urge to finish the job she hadn’t in the woods rushed through her with a burning fury she hadn’t felt since...Jemma closed her eyes. When she opened them, she finally spoke, sure that she could keep her voice steady. “I want someone guarding Daisy’s room, inside and out, around the clock.” She said.

“Of course,” May said. She didn’t even wait. She merely gave Jemma a quick nod and turned to head out the door after exchanging a glance with Mack. Mack gave Jemma a similar nod of acknowledgement and gave her shin a small pat on the way by to the door.

Jemma gave them both a grateful nod in turn and then she turned her attention to Bobbi. “Will you stay with us and keep watch until…” Jemma paused and swallowed a moment. “Until we move to Daisy’s room?” She could barely get the words out.

“Wasn’t planning on being anywhere else,” Bobbi nodded, although Jemma knew that she would have liked to go find Ward just as much as any of the other in the room, save for maybe Jemma herself.

“Thank you,” Jemma nodded and leaned the side of her head against Lily’s. She closed her eyes for a few moments.

“Simmons,” Fitz said quietly. He sat down on the edge of the bed and put his hand on her shoulder like he had earlier, giving it a gentle squeeze. “If you want to go and see her, we can stay with Lily-,”

Jemma shook her head as her eyes welled. “No,” She frowned. “Lily’s been through enough, I’m not going to leave her so I…” She shook her head. “She wouldn’t want me to leave her just to satisfy my own…” she sniffled and shook her head again.

Fitz frowned. “Jemma,” he spoke her name gently. Under any other circumstances, Jemma would have found his presence and tone comforting. She was too far out of her element and far too emotionally strung out to let her feelings make any sort of sense.

“I said, no,” Jemma said firmly even as the tears started down her cheeks for the millionth time today. All she wanted was to go to Daisy’s room and see for herself that she was breathing, even if by mechanical assistance, to know that her heart was still beating, that she was still here - to demand that she not dare attempt to leave them again. Right then, she couldn’t do it, or she couldn’t subject Lily to it.

“We’ll give you some space, Simmons,” Coulson said, giving her knee a small pat before he looked at Fitz and nodded toward the door. Fitz frowned but complied. He gave Jemma’s shoulder a squeeze and kissed the side of her head and then headed for the door. Coulson started to follow.

“Coulson,” Jemma stopped him. When he turned around, he was startled by how dark her eyes had become, even as she shed the well of tears in them. “If any of your guards let him escape,” She said. “It’ll be the last thing they ever do.”

Coulson blinked, startled by the threat. He nodded, regardless. “Of course,” He said before he followed Fitz out through the door. Hunter and Bobbi settled into chairs in the corner of the room by the door. Neither said anything. Hunter seemed like he wanted to. He was bouncing his knee nervously and glancing at Jemma and Lily. Bobbi put a hand in his and brought them to rest on his knee to settle it. When he looked her way, she shook her head and leaned over to kiss his temple as he squeezed her hand.

\----

The sun had already come up when Fitz returned with food for everyone in the room. Jemma forced herself to eat mostly because Lily was awake and watching her like a hawk, taking cues on how she should feel about what was going on by how Jemma was acting. Lily seemed suspicious of all of them, as if she knew they weren’t telling her something about her mama. After they had eaten, Jemma had cleared the room to talk with Lily. She had spoken in the most soothing tone she could as she had tried to explain what was going on with Daisy in the simplest manner that she could so that Lily would understand without being afraid.

The conversation had led to another round of tears and rocking Lily, who had been seated across her lap, hugging Groot to her chest. When Lily had calmed down and was left just sniffling and occasionally dealing with the post-cry hiccup spasms, Jemma kissed the top of her head. She was drawing soothing circles along Lily’s back with her hand. She set her chin down on Lily’s head and swayed with her. “I know it’s scary, darling...I promise we’re safe and I’m not going to leave you, alright?” She waited for Lily to nod. “I love you,” She whispered, turning her head to kiss the top of Lily’s again.

“Love you, mummy,” Lily murmured into her collar after sniffling.

For a long time the two of them sat just like that, swaying and sniffling, though Jemma tried to sniffle as quietly as possible so Lily wouldn’t know she was doing it. Finally, the question Jemma had been dreading came.

“C’we see Mama?” Lily leaned back when she asked it and her big round, tear-welled eyes did things to Jemma’s heart that she never knew were possible until that moment, twisting and pulling at the muscle until it was shreds of its former self.

Jemma knew she couldn’t say no. She had come to realize that Lily needed to see that Daisy was alive, even if she were covered in tubes and wires. She needed to know and, honestly, Jemma didn’t want to deprive either of them of being able to see and touch Daisy, to have that tangible link to ground all three of them. “Yes, love, we can,” she nodded.

\----

It took some time to make arrangements with the hospital staff to officially have Lily checked out so that they could go to the ICU room that Daisy was set up in. There was a small waiting room at the end of the hall where Fitz, Coulson and Hunter were camped out, all in various stages of sleep and exhaust. Bobbi walked with Jemma, who was carrying Lily, who was clinging for dear life onto poor Groot. Mack was outside the hospital room, sitting stiffly in a chair, wide awake. He stood up when he saw them.

“Thank you, Mack,” Jemma said, since he was still guarding the room. Mack nodded and greeted them both with a hug. He managed to talk Lily into giving him her usual kiss on the cheek in greeting, but just barely as Jemma patted her back gently. Lily stared at the door to the room, mostly, craning her neck, eyes wide and fearful.

Jemma crouched to the ground and set Lily on her feet in front of her between her bent knees, moving to hold her there, not letting go, but making sure to look her in the eyes. She reached out and ran her hand along the top and back of Lily’s head, moving the other gently along her arm. "I need you to listen before we go in, okay, sweetheart?” She asked. Lily glanced at the closed door of the room with wide eyes and then turned to look back at Jemma. She nodded her head and held on tighter to Groot. Jem nodded. She leaned forward and gently kissed Lily’s forehead. “Good girl,” she said before bracing herself and going on.

“Remember what we talked about earlier, yeah?” Jemma asked. Lily nodded, but she seemed unsure, which Jemma chalked up to the fact that this wasn’t exactly an easy situation for anyone, let alone her little girl, who hadn’t even reached the age of three yet. Jemma nodded her head gently. “Mama’s got a lot of boo-boos right now,” She tried to keep as calm and reassuring as she possibly could while she went through some of the explanations again. “So when we see her, we’re going to see a lot of monitors and machines too, just like in lab, you remember how those sound?” She asked. Lily nodded, seeming more sure of herself now since she had been in the lab, of course, many times before. Jemma nodded and gave Lily’s arm another gentle squeeze, forcing a very small smile onto her face.

“We know those machines are there to help her get better so we can take her home, right? So…even though it’s going to look a bit frightful, with the monitors the bandages and the machines,” Jemma went on, keeping her voice steady and fighting to keep her eyes from welling up again. “It’s still Mama, yeah? She’s going to be asleep when we go in, but we want to make sure we still say hello and tell her we love her, so she’ll know we’re safe and we’re waiting for her to get well, okay?” Jemma stroked a hand over Lily’s hair and down along her cheek.

Lily nodded. “Okay mummy,” she said before she leaned in to Jemma’s shoulder.

Jemma turned her head and kissed the side of Lily’s, wrapping her arms tight around the little girl. “That’s my good girl,” she kissed the side of Lily’s head once more. “I love you,” she whispered as she moved to stand up, scooping Lily right back up with her. Lily put her head down on Jemma’s shoulder, clutching at her stuffed monkey as if it was the only thing left that was normal and safe. Jemma ran her hand along Lily’s back and then reached for the door handle of the room. “Ready?” She asked. Jemma didn’t move until Lily nodded against her shoulder. “Okay, let’s go see Mama,” She turned the door handle and pushed it open.

Lily buried her face into the crook of Jemma’s neck for a moment as Jemma stepped into the room. Inside, May had moved to her feet when the door started moving and was standing by her chair that was at the head of the bed. She had been in there at Jemma’s request after Coulson had confirmed that Ward was alive and even in this same hospital. Jemma’s eyes shifted past May and her breath caught in her throat immediately. For as much as she had tried to prepare herself and Lily for what they would see when they entered, the sight still took her breath away. Her mind wandered back to the first time she had ever seen Daisy hooked up to the caliber of machines she was currently attached to. This moment, these injuries, and their physical appearance of what she could see…they were so much worse than before. Back then, before they were anything more than friends, Jemma couldn’t have imagined life without Daisy but now…now Jemma felt like she was moments from suffocating and collapsing under the weight of Daisy’s (more or less) absence.

The only thing preventing Jemma from succumbing to the abyss that tried to well within her and consume her was the squirming little girl in her arms. Lily let out a whimper; one of the ones that Jemma knew meant she was gearing up for more tears. She pressed her hand into Lily’s back. “It’s okay, honey, it’s just Mama, remember?” She shifted Lily’s weight, leaned back enough to look at her daughter’s face and immediately felt the blow to her chest caused by the look of fear that was etched into Lily’s features. This wasn’t supposed to happen to them. They were supposed to protect her from all of this. There was only one time in the past when Jemma had ever felt like such a failure as a parent and it had been when they had lost Carter.

May had stepped towards them as Jemma had slowly approached the side of the bed. She reached out and pressed her palm to Jemma’s back, an act meant to provide comfort but in the moment, it seemed to be one of the few anchors to hold Jemma to the present. It was simultaneously a blessing and a curse.

Daisy’s heartbeat was a slow, steady rhythm accented by the sounds of the ventilator as it pushed air into Daisy’s lungs and removed the exhaling carbon dioxide. Lily squirmed again in her arms and let out another whimper, but she was no longer pressed into the crook of Jemma’s neck and shoulder, she was sitting upright in Jemma’s arms, staring at the bed. Her little face was drawn in distress and her eyes had filled all the way up and seemed almost as if they were shaking, preparing for the floodgates to open again. One of her arms was over Jemma’s shoulder holding on, her hand gripping Groot by his tail, the other was wrapped in a fist around the chain of Jemma’s necklace, a gift that Daisy had given her on their last anniversary. Jemma felt the pain in her chest constrict her heart at twice the crushing grip, between Daisy lying practically helpless in the propped hospital bed and Lily leaning toward Daisy’s hospital bed but gripping onto Jemma with confusion as to what she wanted to do and fear at all of the tubes and wires poking out of her mother. Jemma couldn’t fathom how she was possibly still breathing, still standing, still holding onto Lily.

Lily whimpered again and Jemma inhaled a steadying breath and leaned over to kiss her closest temple. “Do you want to give Mama a kiss?” she asked as she ventured to take a couple of steps until she reached the side of the bed. She was careful to watch Lily’s reactions, but she couldn’t avoid the need to reach out and touch Daisy, to be able to feel her presence whether or not she was conscious of it. She shifted Lily’s weight to rest in her right arm and reached out her left hand, setting it as gently as she could along the left side of Daisy’s face since it seemed like it had the least amount of bandaging and bruising. When Lily leaned her weight down towards Daisy, Jemma brought her hand back, settling it along Lily’s side beneath her under arm and leaned over further, to hold her up, suspended just in front of Daisy’s forehead. At first, Lily let go of her death grip on Jemma’s necklace and reached out to pat her small hand along the side of Daisy’s hair. “Be gentle, love,” Jemma gave her a quiet reminder. Lily leaned down just far enough then, still lightly patting at Daisy’s hair and very gently kissed Daisy’s forehead. 

When Lily squirmed again, it was to try and get out of Jemma’s arms and against Daisy’s side. Jemma knew that she might have to move Lily at some point for the nurses and such but, right then, she didn’t have the heart to deny Lily the want to curl up in Daisy’s arms. “You want to lay down with Mama?” she asked, just to make sure. Lily let out a few whimpers and nodded, squirming and reaching for Daisy again. 

“Okay, Lily hold on, sweetheart,” Jemma shifted Lily’s weight so she could balance it. “We have to be as gentle as possible, okay? Mama’s boo-boos are in some places we can’t see under the covers, alright?” She waited for Lily to nod and then kissed the side of her head. She reached out, running her hand down Daisy’s arm, fingers sliding over the inside of her elbow and along her forearm to her wrist before she gently moved it further out to create a space she could settle Lily down into. Lily moved with very careful precision as she was set down on the bed. She moved slow so that she didn’t bump hard into any part of Daisy and managed to settle so she was curled up against Daisy’s side with her head resting on Daisy’s shoulder, an ear pressed tight against the top corner of her chest below her shoulder and the outer edge of her collarbone, where she could hear the steady beat of Daisy’s heart as something other than a beeping machine. 

Lily sniffled and Jemma brought Daisy’s arm back down to rest, letting it shift around the little girl to keep her cradled in place. She adjusted the covers slightly around Daisy, Lily and Groot and leaned over after running her hand along the back of Lily’s head and down between her shoulders so she could kiss first the back of Lily’s head and then the side of Daisy’s, just above her ear. “We’re here,” She murmured into Daisy’s ear, lifting her free hand to settle it along the top of Daisy’s head while the other gently stroked along Lily’s back while the little girl sniffled. Jemma glanced, very briefly, at the heart monitor, convinced she had heard a change in the monitored rhythm. She gave her head a quick shake. “I’m sorry we didn’t come to you sooner,” She went on, pausing just to kiss the spot above Daisy’s ear again. She moved her lips back to rest against the edges of Daisy’s ear, leaning the side of her head lightly against Daisy’s and closing her eyes for just a moment. “We’re not leaving without you…so don’t you dare get any ideas about leaving us,” she murmured through a sniffle. 

After a long while, May moved closer and pulled the hospital chair over to coax Jemma into it. Lily’s even breathing melded with the rhythmic machine hums and beeps. Jemma eventually fell asleep with her head resting on her forearms, half in the chair, half leaned over the edge of the bed, one hand resting on Daisy’s forearm and one pressed to lily’s back to ensure both knew she was there. May didn’t have the heart to wake Jemma up to move her even though she knew the position couldn’t be in any way comfortable. She asked a nurse for an extra blanket to cover Jemma and then had taken up residence in another chair in a nearby corner of the room by the door. She, Bobbi, Mack and Hunter took turns sitting guard inside and outside of Daisy’s room. Though she slept when one of the others was inside the room to guard, May never left the room. Simmons had made a request of her and she wouldn’t leave until Simmons gave her the okay. Even though the others rotated out and made food runs, shower and change of clothes runs, the entire team was in for the long haul. Daisy’s family were not the type to give up easily, they would wait it out for however long was necessary. Now that she was finally here, Jemma had no intentions of leaving until she was allowed to sign Daisy out of the hospital and bring her home.


	10. Hope It Involves Pie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prepare thyself for sap, fluff, some fighting....and pie 
> 
>  
> 
> As always, thank you thank you thank you for the kudos, comments, feedback and love!! I hope you all have a lovely holiday this week! If you're not celebrating a holiday this week, have a lovely week!!  
> <3 <3  
> :o)
> 
> EDITED TO ADD:   
> Oh hey....I'm passed 50k words....does this mean I have technically been successful at NaNo by accident??
> 
> And now back to your regularly scheduled programming!!!   
> \--------------------------------------------------------

**_2017 – August 30th_**  
Jemma's belly shook with bubbles of laughter. "Kumquat? Really, love?" She asked between giggles. She had been sitting propped up in bed, her legs outstretched, one ankle crossed over the other, her shoulders, neck and head propped up by pillows pushed against the headboard. Her hair was down, finally dry from her early shower and she was comfortably clad in a pair of kitten clad pajama shorts and a gray tank top. She had been reviewing some lab reports, her hair tucked behind her ears and her glasses starting to slide down her nose.

When Daisy had emerged from the bathroom from taking her own shower, decked in plain turquoise boy short briefs and a white tank top, she was had been drying her hair with a small towel. She had stopped in the threshold that led from the bathroom to their room and watched Jemma sit there, completely engrossed in the lab reports. The sight of her partly lying, partly sitting there, oblivious to the non-science world, her typically flat stomach now a small puffed pouch that drew Daisy’s exultant gaze constantly, clean skin practically radiant in the dwindling light filtering through their blinds as the sun made its way to bed for the night fixed a sentimental smile on Daisy’s face that she couldn’t be bothered to tame. The fact that Jemma appeared to have a ‘glow’ about her was something Daisy had assumed at first that she was the only one to have noticed, and had started to think it had something to do with some kind of…chemical science, something or other related to her shared connection to the pregnancy until people had finally started making the stereotypical comment about Jem looking like she was glowing.

Daisy had tossed her damp hair towel to the hamper in the corner, combed her fingers through her tangles of hair as she walked over to the side of the bed and climbed in on her knees. A kiss landed just above Jemma’s knee and without looking up from her papers, she uncrossed her legs as Daisy crawled over and settled between them, leaned her weight on her elbows and forearms along Jemma’s sides on the mattress. She leaned down and kissed the middle of the small stomach bump and then had set her head down sideways on Jemma’s belly. It wasn’t the first time Daisy had curled up for a cuddle with both Jemma and the baby, in fact it was something she had started doing almost immediately the night they had arrived home from the hospital and Jemma found it absolutely adorable. Jemma had lifted the papers she was reading so they were out of the way of her stomach and a moment after Daisy’s head was resting on her stomach, she had moved the papers to her left hand to keep reading and had blindly reached down to absently card her fingers through Daisy’s hair.

Daisy had said her name twice and had only gotten a response in the form of a distracted hum each time, so she turned her head and kissed Jemma’s stomach again. “Guess it’s just me and you for tonight’s conversation on names, little kumquat,” She murmured when she had laid her head back down on one side of Jemma’s abdomen. Her hand came up to rest on the other side, palm down, flat and gentle as she spoke. That was when Jemma had finally zoned in on what Daisy was saying. There was a dopey little grin on her face, the one that appeared and overtook her features whenever Daisy started talking directly to the baby instead of to her.

Daisy feigned a gasped. “I think she heard us, shhh,” she replied, her lips twisting up into a smile as Jem combed her fingers through Daisy’s hair again.

“We’re not naming our child ‘kumquat,’” Jemma chuckled as she gathered all the papers and reached out to put them in the top drawer of the nightstand to set them out of the way, suddenly wanting no distractions from the scene playing out on her belly.

Daisy snickered. “Until we pick a name for him-slash-her, the current nickname in circulation…is Kumquat,” She informed Jemma with a slight nod against Jemma’s stomach. “Right, buddy?” she asked before dropping one more kiss to Jemma’s stomach.

“Why is the current optimum nickname for our baby a form of citrus fruit?” Jemma said,  
giggling once more, this time at the serious way Daisy informed her of the alien fetus’ current nickname...which Jemma, admittedly, thought was a better nickname than ‘alien fetus,’ so there was that.

Daisy turned her head, leaving her chin resting against the flat of Jemma’s stomach. She closed her eyes momentarily as Jemma’s fingers made their way through her hair again and her palm came down to caress against her cheek. “Because,” Daisy turned her head and lightly kissed the heel of Jemma’s hand. “He’s currently the size of a kumquat,” She grinned, moving to lean her weight on her hands so she could crawl up the bed and leaned down to collect Jemma’s lips with her own.

Jemma laughed against the kiss and brought her hands up to frame Daisy’s face. “ _He_?” She said when she broke the kiss, arching her right eyebrow up over the top frame of her glasses as she flashed a crooked smirk.

Daisy grinned. “Or she,” she said before she stole another kiss, bringing her knee to rest on the bed and pressing her thigh down between Jemma’s legs. Jemma’s fingers curled into Daisy’s hair and she pulled her closer, first by the back of her head and then by wrapping her leg around Daisy’s hip, to press herself closer to her. Just as she broke their kiss for air, Jemma had thrown her weight and flipped them over. Her mouth found its way to Daisy’s collarbone as she ground down against Daisy’s leg while pressing her own knee firmly against Daisy’s core and eliciting a groan from the taller woman. Daisy’s hands dragged down Jemma’s sides and pulled her in closer by her hips. Daisy let out a content hum. Pregnancy hormone driven Jemma was a much more aggressive Jemma and _hot damn_ Daisy was quickly becoming addicted to giving her the reins more often than not lately.

\----

**_2017 - September 6th ___**

“It’s so fast…” Daisy’s voice came as a distant whisper, staring at the black and white screen of the ultrasound machine like an awestruck child who finally made it to next-in-line to see Santa Claus. Today, in the middle of the ultrasound, Doctor Fowler had suddenly remembered she wanted to show them something and had flipped and clicked a few buttons before the quick sound of the baby’s heartbeat had filled the room while the doctor was explaining what the sound was. Daisy’s eyes had practically bulged out of her head as they listened.

“Is it supposed to be that fast?” Jemma asked, too distracted by trying to divide her attention between watching the monitor and watching the jubilant emotions play out across Daisy’s face as she squeezed Jemma’s hand and stared at the screen, completely enraptured by the silhouette of their little kumquat, to remember exactly what the normal range was supposed to be according to all the literature she had devoured over the last year.

“Currently steady at 143 beats per minute,” Doctor Fowler replied with a grin. “Perfectly normal and healthy,” she assured them. The arm Daisy had around Jemma’s shoulders gave them a squeeze of relief as Jemma leaned her head to rest against Daisy’s shoulder and let out a slow exhale of her own relief and squeezed Daisy’s hand.

Daisy turned her head and kissed the top of Jemma’s. “I love you,” she murmured into her hair before turning her head and resting the side of it against the top of Jem’s so she could look at the screen too. Jemma echoed the sentiment with ease as she leaned into Daisy and watched their baby jostle about on the screen.

\----  
**_2017 – September 11th_**

“I have a confession,” Daisy said as she hefted a gear bag across her shoulders. She grabbed the handle of a rolling suitcase with one hand and slipped her free hand into Jemma’s at her side.

Jemma felt exhausted. And hungry. But also queasy still from the morning. She had a light messenger bag hung across her shoulders. Her fingers curled around Daisy’s when Daisy picked her hand up. Her hair was thrown up in a messy ponytail, and her forehead was speckled in freckles since she had felt too lethargic to bother with makeup that morning. “I hope it involves pie,” Jemma murmured, eyes squinting as she slid her sunglasses on and followed Daisy down the ramp of the bus and across the tarmac toward an awaiting car.

Daisy let out an abrupt laugh. Her short hair fell into her eyes as she turned her head down to chuckle. She lifted Jemma’s hand up and kissed the back of it. “My confession does not involve pie,” she replied with a smile over at Jemma. “But I promise to find you pie as soon as is possible.”

Jemma looked over at Daisy and sighed. “How are you always so awesome?” She asked with a sentimental smile.

Daisy chuckled and leaned over to steal a quick kiss. “You haven’t even heard my confession yet,” she reminded Jemma.

“Oh, right. Yes. What do you have to confess, darling?” Jemma asked, seemingly unperturbed by the fact that Daisy had something at all to confess.

They stopped by the back of the car and the driver opened the trunk for them, taking the suitcase and the gear bag that appeared as just a heavy duty duffel bag to stow for them. “This is not a mission,” Daisy confessed. “Officially.”

Jemma canted her head as Daisy let go of her hand and slipped her arm around her waist to walk her to the open door of the backseat. “Come again?”

Daisy grinned. “We’re not actually on a mission,” she repeated. Jemma arched her eyebrow above the frame of her sunglasses. “We’re on a babymoon.” She explained. She couldn’t see it behind the dark lenses of Jemma’s sunglasses, but she could tell by the way Jemma stopped next to her that she was blinking at Daisy in disbelief.

“A…what?” Jemma asked.

Daisy grinned. “A babymoon,” she repeated. “Like a honeymoon, sorta. Just, pre-baby. To relax,” she smiled. “And to celebrate your birthday…with as much pie as you can stand,” she scrunched up her nose, admittedly feeling triumphant that she had managed to keep the secret from Jemma for almost a full week – despite the fact that _Fitz_ knew about it!

Jemma stared at Daisy for a prolonged moment. “…You tricked me into a vacation?” She asked.

Daisy cleared her throat and wiped the smile off her face, wondering if she was about to have her ass handed to her since Jemma had projects going on or whatever. Daisy had had Bobbi and Fitz’s help to take care of those, though. She had planned for every possible protest she thought Jemma might try to use, but she hadn’t banked on the secrecy or the ‘tricking’ part to be a point of protest. She had been hoping that the sweetness of the gesture would come off as romantic.

“’Trick’ has such a negative connotation to it,” Daisy decided, reaching to turned Jemma toward her and holding onto her hips. “You’ve been really exhausted lately, we’ve been pretty crowded at the base and in a few months that’s gonna be a permanent factor,” her fingers pulled from Jemma’s hip to trace over the very slight round of her abdomen with a small smile. Her eyes lifted from Jemma’s stomach to her eyes and she shrugged. “I figured we could spend some time relaxing by ourselves, spend your birthday free of potential intruders and interruptions, away from all things work-related…just us and a beach, maybe some silly touristy-things,” Daisy scrunched her nose again but was still grinning, albeit a bit nervously now as she waited for Jemma’s reaction.

For a long few moments, Jemma stared at Daisy with an unreadable expression and then with sudden fervor that Daisy was scarcely expecting at that point, Jemma wrapped her arms around Daisy’s shoulders, carded her hands into her hair and pulled her forward into a crushing kiss by the back of her head. Daisy expelled a startled chuckle or two against Jemma’s mouth as she wound her arms around her waist and returned the kiss, melding their mouths together with equal enthusiasm and relief.

“You’re not mad?” Daisy asked when the kiss broke, just to make sure.

Jemma laughed and stole a few more quick kisses after shaking her head. “I love you,” She said between those kisses.

Daisy smiled and stole one last kiss. “Let’s get this babymoon started then!” She cheered and helped Jemma into the car, climbing in after her much to the chauffeur's relief. He shut the back door and hopped in the driver’s seat to drive them to their hotel, a sprawling affair on the beach. Daisy had secured them a corner suite that faced the ocean. It had a king-sized bed that caused Jemma to let out a squeal just before she collapsed into it and rolled onto her stomach, hanging her converse clad feet off the end of the bed with a happy sigh.

Daisy beamed a happy grin at her. She dropped their bags on the baggage rack and then walked to the massive sliding door of their balcony. She pulled back the curtains and opened the door, leaving the screen shut but letting in the breeze, the warm sunlight and the sounds of the waves lapping at the beach, of the birds circling before diving for fish. Daisy kicked off her own sneakers and dropped her sunglasses on the bureau on her way toward where Jemma was laying across the width of the bed, her head resting sideways on her folded arms, smiling in the warmth of the sunlight Daisy had let into the room.

First she reached down and slipped Jemma’s sneakers off. Her hands came to rest along Jem’s calves, fingers pressed into the muscles as they slipped up the length of Jemma’s legs, over her rear as she climbed onto the bed, straddling the back of Jemma’s waist but making sure all of her weight was resting on her knees. Her hands pressed into Jemma’s back, along her spine and over the muscles surrounding it, starting with the lowest part and kneading the heels of her hands, flexing her fingers and pressing the spots she knew wound up the tightest or that she complained about most after long days in the lab.

Jemma exhaled a moan on the tail end of a sigh. “Mrs. Simmons, you…are a dangerous woman…” she murmured the praise against her forearm with a smile.

Daisy let out a chuckle and leaned over as her fingers worked, to kiss the back of her shoulder and the nape of her neck. Her lips pecked at the spot just behind Jemma’s ear as her hands firmly slipped up the middle of Jemma’s spine, out across her shoulders and along the backs of her arms to her elbows. “Well, I’m all yours to do with as you please,” she purred against Jemma’s ear before pulling the bottom of the lobe in and giving it a gentle nibble.

Jemma shifted under her, breath hitching in her throat. “Mmmmmm…” she hummed out almost sleepy, voice thick under Daisy’s touch. She lifted her head just slightly and turned towards the side Daisy was on. “…You haven’t made good on the promise for pie, y’know,” she said.

Daisy let out a snort of laughter and dropped her forehead against the crook of Jemma’s neck as she giggled. “God, I love you…” She breathed, dropping a few quick kisses against the side of her neck and back of her jaw. “C’mon,” she kissed the corner of Jemma’s mouth and then moved to climb off the bed, holding her hands out to Jemma. “Let’s go hunting for pie!” She grinned.

Jemma rolled over onto her back and reached out for Daisy’s hands and Daisy pulled her to her feet with ease. She used Jemma’s hands to pull her in for a proper kiss before they started to pull their shoes on and grabbed their sunglasses on the way out the door on the epic search for birthday pie!

\----  
**_2017 – October 17th_**

“Simmons,” Fitz said her name for the fourth time. Jemma had been standing at the culture incubator, staring at the closed door for six minutes and thirty-three seconds according to his count. “ _Jemma_!” He said more firmly, reaching for her arm.

“Hmm?” Jemma blinked from behind her protective goggles. She looked over at Fitz. “What’s wrong, Fitz?”

Fitz snickered. “Nothing’s wrong with _me_.” He shook his head and showed her the stopwatch on his phone. “You’ve been standing there staring at the incubator for ages,” He smirked. “Why don’t you go take a break, get some tea, yeah?” He suggested.

Jemma bristled around the edges. “I was _thinking_ ,” She grabbed the edges of her lab coat and tugged them closed around her, folding her arms across her chest on top of her baby bump with a ‘humph!’ sound.

“That was not your ‘I’m thinking,’ face,” Fitz told Jemma with a stupid grin. “That was your ‘there’s elevator music playing around this empty abyss,’ face,” He kindly informed her and then ducked away as she tried to poke at his ribs to tickling his sides in revenge. “Don’t take your mood swings out on me!” Fitz egged her on and then ducked when a stress ball came flying at his head. 

Before the ball could break anything, Bobbi had come around the corner into the lab and caught it as if she was bored and merely acting on simple reflex. “I’ve seen you two fight over science before,” Bobbi tossed the ball in the air and caught it without looking. “But a stress ball, _really_?” She arched her right eyebrow and smirked at them.

“Don’t look at me!” Fitz chuckled. “Simmons can’t handle her hormone surges!”

Jemma narrowed her eyes at Fitz and cross her arms over her chest and rested them on her bump again. She let out a startled, “Ha!” When the stress ball left Bobbi’s grip and swiftly bounced off the side of Fitz’s head. 

Fitz floundered and almost lost his balance. “ _Hey_!” He whined, frowning at Bobbi as he stress ball bounced a couple times off the floor and rolled back towards her. 

“Serves you right,” Jemma stuck her tongue out at Fitz and turned to head back toward her station. She made it two steps before she came to an abrupt stop and inhaled a sharp gasp, freezing completely in her spot for a moment. 

Bobbi’s chuckles at Fitz immediately died on her tongue. Both Fitz and Bobbi immediately moved in Jemma’s direction. “Simmons? What is it?” Bobbi’s longer legs let her reach Jemma’s side first and she automatically hooked an arm around her middle to make sure she didn’t fall over even though Jemma didn’t seem unsteady on her feet, just startled. Jemma’s eyes were wide and she seemed to be holding her breath. Her head was turned down toward her rounded baby bump. “Jemma?” Bobbi prodded gently, once more.

“I…” She stared down at her stomach, her brow a mess of wrinkles. “He moved…” she exhaled the breath she had been holding as her eyes welled a moment. She put her hand down along the bump, hoping to feel the whoosh of flutters in her belly once more. 

“ _He_?” Fitz asked at the same time Bobbi said, “The baby??” 

“Or she,” Jemma said as she nodded in answer to Bobbi’s question. At the same time, both Fitz and Bobbi reached out to set a hand on either side of the bump below where Jemma’s hand was on the top of it and leaned down to start murmuring encouragements to try and either feel a kick or get the baby to kick at Jemma again. Jemma let out a snicker before she could stop herself at their immediate reactions.

“ _Heyyyyyyyyyyy_ there, weirdos…” Daisy had come around the corner of the lab to witness the baby bump lovefest. Jemma’s eyes were filled, but there was a Cheshire sized smile stretched across her face. She looked up when Daisy spoke in the slightly amused, slightly disturbed singsong tone. Daisy’s eyebrows arched as her eyes dropped to Jemma’s baby bump, a mixture of concern and curiosity etching over her features. “Think you can stop fondling my wife and child long enough to let me take her out for lunch?” she asked with a small smirk. Doctor Fowler had told them that sometime between week sixteen and week twenty, Jemma would be able to feel the baby moving and within a couple of weeks of that, Daisy might be able to feel it finally. Daisy had been waiting for that moment for a long time and had spent the last week and a half repeatedly reassuring Jemma that it was okay that she hadn’t felt the baby move just yet since they were still in the window of movement timeframe. Admittedly, she felt a small pang of jealously that some of the others from the team might have been here to experience this moment with Jemma instead of her. 

Jemma lifted her hand free and held it out, waving Daisy over. “Darling, come, come, come, she’s moving,” Jemma’s stomach fluttered, as if she were a fishbowl with a new goldfish occupant swimming about, testing the boundaries of its home. 

Bobbi gave the baby bump strict instructions to keep her mother up all hours of the night, drumming about and gave the side of the baby bump a quick kiss before she stood up to get out of Daisy’s way. She dragged Fitz away with her as he protested about wanting to continue observation for scientific purposes. 

Daisy shifted her eyes to watch them go and stepped closer to Jemma, reaching out to take her hand when she was close enough. “ _She_?” daisy arched her right eyebrow. The two of them had spent the entire pregnancy thus far, jokingly asking this question whenever the other uses a specific pronoun since neither really liked using ‘it,’ to describe their baby.

“Or he,” Jemma let out the usual response as she pulled Daisy in closer by her hand, which she immediately brought to rest, palm down against the baby bump. Almost immediately, the fluttering returned, which caused Jemma’s stomach muscles to hitch and she let out an almost uncontrollable, joyful giggle. 

Daisy’s eyes jumped from Jemma’s stomach up to her face. The happy tears behind her protective glasses and the happy fit of giggles made a sentimental smile slip up Daisy’s lips even though she couldn’t feel any of the movement that Jemma was apparently feeling. “What’s it feel like?” Daisy asked quietly. She took half a step closer and put her other hand along the other side of the protruding bump. Her eyes turned back down toward Jemma’s stomach as Jemma brought her hands to rest on top of Daisy’s. 

“Like the first time I kissed you,” Jemma whispered. Daisy’s eyes turned to Jemma’s again and Jemma leaned in to close the distance between them, pressing her lips to Daisy’s and lifting a hand to rest along her cheek. Daisy’s arms slipped around Jemma’s waist and pulled her closer, until their stomachs were pressed flush. “Mmm!” Jemma broke the kiss with another giggle, turning her head down towards where their stomachs were touching. She cleared her throat as she touched her fingers to her lips and then chuckled again. “Sorry,” she cleared her throat again as Daisy watched her face with a small, crooked smile. “That’s gonna take some getting used to,” she grinned. 

After all the months she had suffered through the trials of conceiving a child through the route they had taken, each and every smile, giggle or joyful tear-filled glance that she caught on Jemma’s face made Daisy’s heart soar. She wanted to be able to feel the baby move too, so very much but, for the moment, she was more than happy to watch Jemma experience this victory. Daisy leaned forward and kissed her temple, swaying just slightly to and fro as Jemma set her chin down on Daisy’s shoulder. 

A few long, overly content moments later, Daisy was leaned over with a hand resting on either side of Jemma’s swollen belly, pressing a long kiss to the front of it just next to her navel. It caused Jemma’s diaphragm to shake with a bubble of laughter again. Daisy smiled. “Listen, Lil Bump,” she said softly, but loud enough for Jemma to hear as her hand combed through Daisy’s hair. “I really love it when your mum makes that sound, so you go ahead and just keep swimming, okay?” She kissed the spot again and almost laughed when Jemma giggled again. Daisy stood back up. “C’mon, we’re bustin’ outta this place and going to lunch,” She grinned and reached out to pulled Jemma’s protective glasses off. She set them on the closest station table and kissed the end of Jemma’s nose as she slipped out of her lab coat. 

“Will there be-,” 

“Pie,” Daisy finished in unison with a chuckle and a nod. “Of course there’ll be pie – what kind of a monster do you think I am? Take you somewhere that doesn’t have pie…pft” Daisy teased. She wrapped her arm around Jemma’s waist after she hung up her lab coat and kissed the side of her head as they walked arm in arm from the lab and toward the garage. 

\----  
**_2017 - November 22nd_**

“You can’t just lock me away in a tower until I go into labor, Daisy!” Jemma snapped. She couldn’t believe they were even having this argument as she paced back and forth in front of the end of their bed, alternating between crossing her arms over her chest and throwing them up in exasperation as she tried to make her point. Daisy was sitting on the bench seat that the end of the bed, calm and collected, not raising her voice yet at all in the last ten minutes of their argument. Normally, Jemma would have been glad Daisy wasn’t shouting with her, but at the moment she found it unnerving for some reason she couldn’t quite pinpoint. 

“Jem, you know that’s not what I’m trying to do…” Daisy frowned as she watched her wife pace. She wanted to reach out and stall Jemma’s pacing by grabbing her hand and pulling her over, but she knew right now wasn’t the time for that. So she waited and tried to time her comments and validations as wisely as possible.

“Great! Then it’s perfectly effortless on your part!” Jemma snapped with a frown. “How convenient and fabulous for you!” 

Daisy bent her arms at the elbows and threw her hands up in her own slight show of exasperation. “Are you listening to yourself right now, Jem? C’mon, you can’t tell me you don’t understand where I’m coming from with this-,” 

“You can’t _ban_ me from the field on a paranoid _whim_!” Jemma spun, midway through her pacing to turn on Daisy. She was angry. Jemma couldn’t remember the last time she had seen Jemma this angry. No, that was a lie. She remembered when Jemma had stepped protectively in front of her and had threatened Ward with his own life for what he had done to Fitz and Daisy. This wasn’t quite that Jemma as there wasn’t malice in her face or voice so much as confusion and frustration. 

“ _Jemma_ ,” Daisy climbed to her feet in a slow, fluid motion and stepped into her wife’s path on her next pass by. She reached out to Jemma’s shoulders and slid her hands gently down the outsides of Jemma’s arms. “What they’re suggesting isn’t just going into the field to collect some samples and do some tests,” She said, trying her best to speak gently, to keep her voice steady and calm – trying to push her abundance of concern into a steady, firm grounding for the both of them. “This is undercover. This isn’t a whim. This isn’t paranoia – this is straight up, one hundred percent, hands down, I am not willing to agree that you should be doing this because I cannot even beginning to contemplate losing either of you without the tremors-,” She paused a moment when she felt the rumbles started to roll out from her gut and toward her feet. She took a deep breath and exhaled her through her nose before she brought her eyes to Jemma’s. “It is not irrational to want to keep my wife and child out of direct danger…” she frowned. 

Jemma wasn’t ready to make nice. She could see the pain in Daisy’s face as she took the breath to steady herself, but something in her just wouldn’t let her release the irrational logic that Daisy wanting to keep her out of the field was somehow treating her like a grounded child. She shrugged out of Daisy’s hold and took a step back. “I’m not a petulant child – but I _will_ act like one if that’s how you’re going to treat me!” 

“Jemma-,” Daisy sighed as Jemma pushed past her and stalked to the bathroom. Daisy tried to follow her but Jemma slammed the door just as she was about to reach it. With a heavy, tired sigh, Daisy put a hand on the frame on either side of the door. “Jemma…” she called through the door. She brought her forehead to rest on the door and closed her eyes with a frown. “C’mon, Jem…please don’t be like this…you would feel the same way if our situations were reversed,” She called, her frustration beginning to grow. “I’m just trying to keep you both safe – that’s my job in all of this isn’t it?”

Jemma threw the door open and Daisy jumped, standing straight up and blinking at her wife. Jemma’s nostrils flared as she ground her jaw together and glared at Daisy, her eyes filled. “What’s _that_ supposed to mean?!” She demanded. 

Daisy stammered, stepping back once or twice as Jemma advanced toward her a few steps, her angry glare piercing. “I mean…it’s just that…Jemma, _I love you_ -,” 

“ _And_?” Jemma shouted. “I love you too, but you don’t see me stopping you from running into caverns and warehouses full of weapons and foot soldiers and evil masterminds and inhumans who’ve drank the Hydra Kool-Aid, _do you_!?” She demanded. 

“It’s my job-,”

“Right, your Job. I’m your job too, right? So you’re just following orders and being a good soldier – doing your duty because you have to, is that it?!” 

Daisy’s face fell as she stared at Jemma and tried to figure out if Jemma was honestly this upset about Daisy’s decision to speak up at the briefing to say she was against the idea of sending Jemma in undercover on a mission. The mission _did_ involve a potentially shady obstetrician, so she understood the idea behind using Jemma as a plant. The mission would send Mack and Jemma into the office as new patients who had just relocated to the area and needed to change doctors for the remainder of the pregnancy. The objective would be to get a bug in so Daisy could get into their data center, get intel on what they were really doing in there as there was suspicious that they were tampering with pregnancies, attempting create designer baby inhumans. 

“Are you fucking kidding me, Jem?!” Daisy finally snapped, throwing her hands up in frustration. 

“Well, if all I am is another job to take care of-,”

“That’s not what I meant!” 

“Then tell me what you meant – spit it out instead of…of…pussyfooting around the subject!”

Daisy’s eyebrows shot up. “I was _perfectly_ clear earlier when I said I am not letting you _anywhere_ near a fucking...deranged Hydra doctor who’s walking around potentially injecting pregnant women with who fucking _knows_ what and possibly harming _our baby_ in the process!” Daisy shouted, moving closer into Jemma’s personal space, standing toe to toe with her, the rounded baby bump between them. 

“It’s not your choice!” Jemma shouted.

“The _fuck_ it’s not!” Daisy screamed right back. “We’re talking about some...some grade-A, leftover Mengele, Nazi-flavored fucked up Frankenstein _bullshit_ Jemma!” She said. “You can’t expect me in my right mind to be on board with something like that being _anywhere_ near you two! And I can’t believe _you’re_ in your right mind if you think that’s a good idea at all!” 

“This isn’t about _us_ , Daisy! There are other mothers, clueless – and, and _innocent babies_ ’ lives at stake! You can’t expect me not to volunteer to help!” Jemma countered. “Mack will be with me the whole time! We’ll-,”

“No! Fucking – This isn’t a movie and you can’t just….fucking volunteer as tribute! It’s not that I don’t trust Mack to protect you-,” Daisy roughed her fingers over her temples and through her hair. “Do you even _hear_ yourself right now?! Jemma, _anything_ could happen and not just _to you_.” 

Jemma didn’t know why she was fighting this so hard. She didn’t even _want_ to really do it. The idea of putting the baby in danger was terrifying. The idea of all those mothers having no idea their children were destined for horrific futures…Jemma had to help. She _had_ to. It was the right thing to do, wasn’t it? 

“Baby, please just listen to me,” Daisy frowned as she stepped closer. “I don’t...I get it, I know you want to help, but please… _please_ think about this fully – rationally, even! This isn’t something to just go off all sanctimoniously half-cocked and hormonally charged about!” It was out before Daisy could filter it in her desperation to break Jemma from the craze of anger that had taken hold of her. Just as Jemma had started to breathe a little more calmly, she was riled up all over again. Her hand came swinging and cracked across Daisy’s cheek before she could properly consider the action. 

Daisy lurched to the side, partially from the force and partially from the surprise of the slap. Jemma gasped at the sound the slap made and the swift sting it caused in her hand. She covered her mouth and nose immediately with her hands, eyes wide and quickly filling with tears. Daisy blinked, utterly dazed by the violent reaction from Jemma, reeling from the swell of pain and heat that spread through her cheek. She stood up straight and stared at Jemma with wide eyes. Her brow furrowed as she tried to sort through what had just happened between them and her urge to immediately reach out for Jemma to hold her until she found some sort of rational sense again. 

A sob escaped Jemma as she took a tentative step closer toward Daisy. “Daisy, I’m so sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I-,” 

Daisy took two quick steps forward as Jemma was reaching for her shoulders and in a single motion, had wrapped her arms around Jemma and crushed their mouths together, ignoring the hot tears on Jemma’s cheeks that hit her own skin. Jemma’s mouth responded immediately. She fought for a moment to try and break free, to apologize again but her apologies were swallowed up by Daisy’s mouth as she picked Jemma up off of her feet and carried her to the bed. In a heated flurry of voracious need, clothes were ripped away and tossed aside. Daisy worked their bodies together seamlessly, sweat and tears mingled together into indecipherable saline, moans devoured sobs as nails dug into flesh along shoulder blades and scalps until they were clenched around each other panting, exhausted and spent, breathless and trembling. 

For some time they lay curled together, spooning, sleepless and quiet. Jemma was pressed back into Daisy, who had her arms wrapped around Jemma, her hands resting around the bulbous round of the baby bump, her palms receiving an erratic drumbeat of kicks and punches from the baby whenever they shifted slightly to stroke over the bump. Her chin was tucked atop Jemma’s head. They were pressed, flesh to flesh, cooled from their dried sweat and cuddled close under the covers. Jemma’s arms came to rest over top of Daisy’s and she curled their fingers together against her stomach.

“Daisy,” Jemma finally broke the long silence between them. She sniffled as she spoke. “I love you,” she said. “I’m _so_ sorry, I don’t know what…what came over me…” She frowned. 

Daisy remained quiet for a moment. She turned her head and kissed the top of Jemma’s, letting go of one of Jemma’s hands to run her hand up and down along Jemma’s arm. “It’s okay, Jem,” She moved her hand along Jemma’s arm and down her side and kissed the back of her head. “I love you too,” she whispered reassuringly as she moved and kissed the back of Jemma’s shoulder and the spot behind her ear, bringing her hand back down to rest on the baby bump. She closed her eyes when she felt the swift kick to her palm it elicited. “We’re going to find out what they’re doing and put a stop to it,” she swore. “...I’m not willing to sacrifice you two to do it,” She added. “I don’t care how selfish that is,” She whispered. 

“I know,” Jemma squeezed Daisy’s hands, speaking softly. Daisy listened to the deep breath she took in and exhaled as a sigh. “I know you’re right, I just…I don’t know what…” she frowned. “I know you’re right – a-and you have to know I wouldn’t do anything to-,” 

“I know,” Daisy echoed with a nod. She kissed the top of Jemma’s shoulder and adjusted the covers around them. “You have to know that you’re so much more to me than a job or a duty,” She murmured against Jemma’s shoulder. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not my job to protect both of you still,” She quietly cleared her throat. “You are…my everything,” she wrapped her arms tighter about both of them, attempting to pull Jemma as close as possible though they were joined together as tightly as they possibly could have been. Jemma felt the urgency in Daisy’s words and she knew the unspoken fear that Daisy tried to constantly ignore – she had already lost so many of her ‘families’ in the past…this was not a family Daisy could handle losing. 

Jemma twisted slightly in her spot. She turned and kissed Daisy’s temple as she reached a hand back over her shoulder and carded it through Daisy’s hair. After a moment she wriggled loose of Daisy’s grip so she could roll over to face her. Daisy’s hands immediately wound around her waist and pulled her in against her once more. Their legs became a tangle of limbs and Jemma tucked her head into the crook of Daisy’s neck and pressed her ear to Daisy’s chest. She wrapped her arms tightly around Daisy’s middle. “I love you,” she murmured. “I hope you know you’re stuck with us.”

“Wouldn’t trade you for anything,” Daisy kissed the top of her head. 

For a long few moments, after Daisy pulled the covers up to tuck them properly back around the two of them, they lay there in silence. Daisy was sure that Jemma had fallen asleep and had focused again on the thrumming kicks the baby made against her stomach through Jemma’s. She was surprised when Jemma broke the silence. 

“…Would now be a really bad time to ask you to make a pie run?” It came out in such an innocent sounding murmur that Daisy couldn’t help the startled bark of laughter that escaped her. She felt Jemma smile against her collar. 

Daisy’s chuckles faded into a hum of a sigh. She kissed the top of Jemma’s head. “What kind of pie do you want?”

Jemma leaned back and grinned at her. “You’re the besstttt,” She leaned in and kissed her. 

“I don’t think that’s a commonly found pie flavor…” Daisy quipped. 

“I’ll settle for cherry, in that case…” Jemma smiled.

Daisy kissed her once more and climbed from bed to started tugging clothes on to make a middle of the night pie run.


	11. What Do I Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Forewarning:** I did not get a chance to properly proofread this annnnnd I'm posting it from my phone, sorry for typos and such!! 
> 
> As always, thank you for all the love, kudos, comments and feedback! I hope you've all had a lovely holiday!! :)   
> <3

When Daisy awoke, it was to darkness. She blinked opening and closing her eyelids a few times in an attempt to allow her eyes to adjust to the darkness, to allow her to try and get some form of bearing on her surroundings, on what was going on. She had no memory of how she had ended up here, wherever it was that she had ended up. Daisy remained seated on the ground, a stony surface, cold and damp. She moved her hands in the dark, sliding down each forearm to her wrist and hand. The limbs felt heavy but there were no chains on them. That was a good sign. Next she checked over the rest of her body. There was nothing restraining her waist or ankles. There was heavy pain in her chest each inhale and exhale. Now that she was trying to take stock in the dark, her head felt like it was being jackhammered.  
 _Think Daisy, think. Where were you last?_ She asked herself as she finally hazarded picking herself up off the ground and moving to her feet. The movement caused a wave of dizziness and she put her hands out at her sides and to her back, bracing herself on what felt like a brick wall behind her. Her lungs wracked with coughs in the next moment and she lurched over, bent at her waist as she coughed roughly. She felt something in her mouth and spit it out. She didn’t need to be able to see to know that it was blood since the copper taste left behind on her tongue let her know.

Daisy took in a slow, deep breath. She gently pressed her right hand across the torso to the left side of her rib cage as she inhaled a hiss of pain. Her torso felt rigid to the test. It was too tender to press into it at all. Her eyes felt like they had finally adjusted to the dark so she took another look around, trying to ignore the constricted feeling in her throat as she tried to breathe. A small pinhole of light drew her attention and Daisy automatically shuffled for it, her hands out in front of her, blindly feeling the air in an attempt to avoid running into anything.

The light belonged to a tiny keyhole on a door. She could feel the knob but she couldn’t see through the lock hole when she tried to peek through. She tried the knob. It was loose but it was locked and it wouldn’t turn. She wrapped her hand around the knob and concentrated, but the injuries she had must have been pretty extensive because she couldn’t seem to conjure up any of her powers to try and shatter the knob. Before she could try again, a voice interrupted from somewhere behind her.

Daisy turned swiftly and jumped to her feet. Her eyes jammed shut immediately and she doubled over, grabbing at her gut and her head simultaneously as she ground her teeth together. When she opened her eyes, it was still dark, but she was no longer in whatever cave or pit she had been in. She was in the woods. She squinted hard, attempting to readjust her eyes again as the turned in a circle, her feet crunching in the fallen leaves below them.

“Damn, girl, someone sure made a punching bag outta your scrawny little ass,”

Daisy froze. She knew that voice. She knew that voice and exactly who it belonged to. “T-Trip…” she exhaled the name. After so much time, it sounded foreign on her tongue. She spun around, ignoring the fresh wave of dizziness it caused. Her weary eyes landed on the man, standing only a few feet away. “Trip?” she asked, brow furrowing again as she took a half step closer to him.

He stretched his arms out at his sides as if to invite her in for a hug. “Do I look like a mirage to you?” He asked.

Daisy’s eyes welled and she ignored the pain in various parts of her body as she rushed forward and threw her arms around his neck. She grunted in pain as he hugged her back but she didn’t let her grip slacken. “You’re here,” She let out a sound that was a combination of a laugh and a sob as she closed her eyes and held on. “I can’t believe you’re,” she exhaled a labored breath. “Trip, I…I’m so sorry, I-,”

The interruption to her train of thought came this time in the sound of someone crying out her name. Daisy pulled back, landing back in the leaves flat on her feet. Her hand came to rest on Trip’s chest, as if afraid he might really be a mirage and if she let go, he would disappear. She knew something wasn’t right here. Who was calling her name…? She looked around the wooded area they were in, unable to place its familiarity.

“Skye,” Trip said her name, bringing her back to where she was at the moment.

Daisy looked at him. Her brow furrowed. “How did I get here…I was…” She clenched her eyes shut.

“Easy, girl, you got knocked around pretty good,” Trip stepped closer to her and put a hand on her shoulder, which made Daisy wince.

“You’re…you can’t be here,” Daisy said. “I was with…I had to…protect,” Her brain felt foggy and light headed. Her vision seemed to have blurred around the edges. Her hand stayed planted on Trip’s chest a moment and then she heard it. “ _Lily_ …” She breathed the name in a whisper. She spun around and the swift movement pulled her legs out from under her.

“Whoa, there,” Trip reached for her but this time Daisy scrambled back a bit and dragged herself to her feet, holding her hand out but this time as if to stop him from advancing. Her eyes were wide and welled. Lily. She had been protecting Lily. The cries were faint, ghosts of the volume they should be, but they weren’t alone. Jemma was demanding something of her too.

Daisy’s wild eyes turned to Trip. “You can’t be here…you’re…you’re dead, Trip,” she sniffled. “…if you’re here and I’m…” the color sapped from her face as she swayed on her feet, breath coming out in labored gasps.

“Slow it down girl, it’s gonna catch up to you too fast if you-,”

“Am I…” She turned her eyes to Trip’s face, her eyes wide, more pupil than iris as she stared, her brow a mess of creases. “Am I dead?”

Trip shook his head. “No…”

Before Daisy could ask any more questions or wrap her head around anything else, she felt a forceful blow hit her in the chest. It knocked the wind out of her and sent her sprawling on her back. Daisy couldn’t seem to pull air in after that. She stared up at the dim light filtering in through the canopy of trees, mouth gaped open, eyes wide, attempting to pull air in but unable to force it. Her body jolted with another blow and then another.

Trip came and knelt at her side. He grabbed her by the shoulders and was shouting at her, but Daisy couldn’t hear him. She could hear Jemma. Jemma was crying. _”You can’t go!”_ Jemma’s voice shouted through a desperate sob. Daisy felt it again; the pounding hammer beat against her chest, the jolt of her body, the weight of her immobile limbs. _”I won’t let you!”_

“Skye!” Trip had her head in his hands, holding her face still, turned to look at him. “Let go” He said. Daisy’s brow scrunched. Was he…was he telling her to die?

_”Simmons, let her go – you have to let her-,”_

Daisy struggled in the haze of her surroundings, in the pain that seemed to had seeped further down into the depths of her bones in those moments, to recognize the voice. It wasn’t Trips. _No!_ she thought, screaming it in her head as if Jemma would somehow hear her, as if she _could_ find a way to make Jemma hear her. _I’m here! JEM! I’m here!_ her mind raced and fought where her body couldn’t. In the next moment, a shock of pain she had never before felt in her life shot through Daisy, jolting and shaking her body into convulsion, causing her eyes to roll up into her head as Trip tried to call to her. When it subsided, Daisy’s head lolled from side to side.

Trip lightly smacked at her cheeks. Before he could order her to breathe again the shock jolted through her once more. Daisy struggled, unsure what she was supposed to fight against. Her vision blurred and darkened. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. There was only pain, and fear…and the sound of Lily sobbing. Lily was sobbing. The last thought through her mind when the electrical jolt of fiery pain thrummed through her veins again was that if Lily was sobbing, it meant she was alive. The darkness returned and swallowed Daisy wholly this time.

\----

“You need a shower,” Bobbi had sent Hunter and Mack on a run to Daisy and Jemma’s house so that they could bring clean clothes for Lily and Jemma. Coulson had gone with them. He had been on edge, for obvious reasons, since he had arrived at the hospital when the team had first arrived and something about Hunter and Mack heading for the house seemed hinky to him, so he decided he wanted to go along. It wasn’t Hunter and Mack heading to the house that seemed hinky; so much as the fact that in the hectic rush surrounding the situation, Coulson had realized he hadn’t sent a team there to do a thorough check of the house. He wanted to be there first hand for it.

They hadn’t found any traps or weapons rigged anywhere in their sweep and, as far as all three could tell, there hadn’t been anything that seemed out of place or missing. Coulson called in an additional team to do a more thorough sweep after sending Hunter and Mack back to the hospital with the requested clothes as well as Lily’s favorite blanket. He had sent some of the toiletries along too, figuring that something familiar from home would be of some comfort, whether it was simply the scent of a shampoo or soap.

Jemma frowned. “I’m alright,” She murmured, absently reaching up to fix the sloppy ponytail her hair was in. They had been in the hospital facility for three days. Jemma wanted them moved somewhere more secure – back to the base. She wanted Ward thrown into one of the inhuman pods so he couldn’t escape. She wanted to see Daisy’s eyes open, so see the ventilator removed…to hear her voice. Coulson was in the process of getting the base prepared for the transfer but they were in limbo all around at the moment.

“Lily needs one too,” Bobbi pointed out. “Have to keep the germs at bay while Daisy’s healing up, right?” She urged. Jemma chewed on her bottom lip as she glanced at the hospital bed. Lily was lying against Daisy’s shoulder, tucked under Daisy’s limp arm that she had pulled around herself as the closest thing to a hug from her Mama that she could get right then, and was in the process of reading (or reciting from memory, really), one of her favorite books to Daisy by heart. It was Dr. Seuss’ _How The Grinch Stole Christmas_ and this was probably one of a dozen times she had read it to Daisy, trying each and every time to throw her voice for the characters the way the Daisy always did when reading it to her. Each and every time, as she absently flipped the pages when she thought she was supposed to, Lily turned to look at Daisy, as if expecting a reaction from her Mama to her reading. Each and every time she was met only with the humming and whirring of the machines and each and every time, her little shoulders slumped in defeat and she paused for longer and longer beats before she took a deep breath and soldiered on, as if she was positive that this simple act of reading to her Mama would wake her up.

Each and every time she witnessed it, Jemma felt the fractured shards of her heart shatter in millions of new tiny fragments, slicing open new wounds and old ones into the growing empty black hole in her chest. Was this what her life was now? Had it always been destined for this from the moment they had kissed under that stupid guise of the mistletoe? Could she chalk Daisy’s abundant fear of not coming home to them, of being killed in action and, in effect, abandoning them in a way that she had been abandoned as a baby, simply become a self-fulfilling prophecy for a road Daisy had had to take? Jemma got lost in her thoughts as she watched the scene of her daughter, desperately trying to bring Daisy back by near sheer force of will alone.

“Simmons,” May’s voice broke into the endless stream of depressing consciousness that ruled Jemma’s every thought. Jemma turned tired eyes to May. May had only left the room three times since she had arrived, and those had been at Jemma’s request to go and check to make Ward was still under lock and key as well as sedation and to get reports from his medical charts. Other than that, she had used the restroom that was inside the ICU room they had for the facilities and to shower and that was it. Her eyes softened a bit when Jemma looked her way. “It’ll do you both some good,” She reasoned of the shower suggestion. “Give you a moment to collect your thoughts and refresh – get into your own clothes,” She urged.

Jemma frowned as Lily finished the book. She closed the book with her little hands and set it in her lap and sat up to look at Daisy again, studying closely, scrutinizing. Jemma watched her little shoulders drop once more. Lily leaned in and placed a careful kissed to Daisy’s cheek and frowned again when she got no reaction. This time, Lily hung her head a moment and then dropped it to rest on Daisy’s shoulder. Jemma knew the tears were there before the sniffles came. She inhaled a steadying breath of her own and stood up from the chair she was seated in. Her limbs and joints were stiff, angry with her for the horrid sleeping conditions and sedentary hell she had put them through the last couple of days. She pressed her hand into Lily’s back and gently ran it in a circle. She leaned over first to kiss Daisy’s temple and then kissed the side of Lily’s head. Lily looked at her with a curious gaze when she leaned back just enough to look at Lily and speak.

“Hey, Monkey,” she whispered with a sad smile that she tried her best to brighten. “What d’you say we go and have a bath, yeah? Aunt Bobbi brought us your favorite jammies, even,” she nodded toward the bag at the end of the bed. Lily glanced in the direction of the bag and then glanced nervously at Daisy, unsure. Jemma moved her hand along Lily’s back. “We don’t have to leave the room,” she turned and pointed to the restroom door in the corner. “We’ll just go right there into the bathroom, like when we’ve had to go potty, so far, right?” She looked over at Lily.

“If your Mama starts to wake up, we’ll come and get you right away,” May promised with a reassuring smile. Bobbi nodded when Lily looked her way, turning a sad smile up onto her face.

Lily seemed dubious of the idea, scared even, to leave Daisy’s side. It took a little more encouraging to hoist Lily away, making sure to leave Groot behind as added protection in her stead, before she took the bag and headed with Lily into the restroom as Lily wiped her tear stained cheeks and eyes on her shoulder. She folded down the bench seat that was attached to the wall inside the standing shower and then turned the water on to get it warm before she got them out of their clothes and into the shower, hoisting Lily up to stand on the bench seat next to her so she could start washing Lily’s hair. True to form, shortly into the shower, Lily began humming and swaying in her spot on the chair. Though it made Jemma smile, she knew this wasn’t just because of the boredom of a shower compared to a bath, it was a distraction from her thoughts about her Mama. She recognized the deflection type of coping mechanism.

It belonged to Daisy. And now it belonged to Lily. This would be her life now, sadly smiling at her poor daughter as she picked out all the recognizable little bits of Lily that had come from Daisy. The wavy dark very slight curls of hair, the mischievous glint that sparkled in her eye just before she rushed into some form of shenanigans she was explicitly told not to do, the way her chin came to a point when she was laughing or grinning, the way a belly laugh made her tip her head back all the way and fall over in her seat, Jemma could run the list through her mind for hours. They weren’t all inherent traits. Some were learned, like the way when Lily hugged a person, she turned her head into the crook of their neck, right where the back base of it met their shoulder and inhaled the deepest breath she could and let it out as a sigh. That was one hundred percent a learned trait.

When it was clear Lily was becoming anxious to get back into the hospital room to Daisy, Jemma made the quickest work of their showers that she could. She turned the water off and grabbed a couple of the towels from the bag to dry them off. She wrapped Lily up in the towel after wrapping one around herself and tucking the end in to keep it hooked around her, and then carried Lily out to stand her on the closed lid of the toilet. She fell into a reflexive post-bath routine; Dry Lily’s hair with a smaller towel while the little girl fidgeted from foot to foot and asked random questions, change her into her underpants and her pajamas – a light green top and bottoms covered in all manner of dinosaurs that usually made her imitate the kinds of roars she thought dinosaurs made, sit her down on the toilet and attempt to put socks on her feet while she swung them back and forth. Lily’s questions were harder to field than normal today while Jemma moved on to combing Lily’s hair to clear the tangles out gently. They ranged from asking when Daisy would wake up to why she didn’t react to Lily’s reading.

Jemma did her best to force her emotions about the questions and their respective answers to try to keep from further scaring Lily while she tried to figure out answers. She didn’t want to lie to her daughter but not knowing whether or not your mother was going to live while lying in a hospital bed with her wasn’t as reassuring as telling Lily that Daisy could hear all the things Lily was saying to her and that continuing to talk to her and read to her would hopefully help Daisy wake up even faster.

When all was said and done, she hung the towels up to dry on a rack on the shower door and packed all of their dirty clothes and toiletries into the bag since they were dressed in the new clothes. She left the bag in the bathroom and wrapped Lily up in her blanket as she scooped her up and kissed her cheek before turning and heading back into the hospital room. Lily buried her head into the crook of Jemma’s neck and Jemma closed her eyes for just a moment as the scent of home filled her senses. Her eyes welled up and she felt the bridge of her nose burn as she absently rubbed Lily’s back and brought her back over to the side of the bed where she had left Groot to gently place her back down there, tucked inside Daisy’s arm. She knew the scents and the sounds wouldn’t wake Daisy up. The doctors still had daisy in an induced coma. Her ability to heal may have been at an increased rate ever since they had injected her all those years ago after her gunshot wounds, but her wounds this time around were more extensive and there were also a lot more of them at once to contend with. Jemma knew this was going to be a long, agonizing time trial and she did not know how she was going to survive making it through, only knew that she had to keep herself together for Lily.

She sat back down in the chair next to Daisy’s bed and watched as Lily, once again, told Daisy that she was going to read her another story, which was just a repeat of the story she had already read to her a dozen times. Jemma pulled her hair up again into a sloppy ponytail and laid her head back against the back of the chair. She stared at the ceiling and made a mental plea to the heavens for some form of strength to get her through what lay ahead of her family.

\-----

Jemma wasn’t sure how long after returning from the shower it was that she had dozed off, her head resting on her shoulder, her hand reached out to hold onto part of Daisy’s arm while her fingers stretched to press against Lily’s back – it acted as an anchor letting her know they were both there, both tangible, both alive, despite everything. She awoke to the sound of someone bustling into the room with speed. Jemma had actually been on her feet before she was actually awake. May and Bobbi had both made it to their feet and in front of the opening door before Jemma had even heard the commotion.

“Jesus, Phil,” May exhaled a sigh as her shoulders relaxed when Coulson appeared. He seemed agitated. He was still in his tactical vest with a gun holstered at his hip, his attire from being present at the house sweep. A microphone ear piece hung down from his shoulder, having been pulled from his ear earlier in his haste to get from the car and into the hospital room.

“What is it?” Jemma ignored her irritation at the hasty entrance and spared only a glance to Daisy’s hospital bed to make sure Lily was still napping before her eyes were back on Coulson, an uneasy pit forming in her gut.

Coulson was breathless. The commotion he had made had drawn Fitz and Mack from the waiting room further down the hall and they were standing in the doorway now, waiting for whatever Coulson had to say. He dug into the pocket of his pants and pulled out a small vial. She stepped over toward the rolling bedside table that was next to Jemma and the side of the bed and set it down on the table. For a long moment, he stared at the vial and didn’t say anything. Bobbi, May, Mack and Fitz stood, staring at the small glass vial, expectantly waiting.

Jemma’s eyes turned to look at the vial. She didn’t need to see the code on the side of it to know what it was, just based on Coulson’s reaction when he had entered and set the item down.

“Is that-,” Fitz began to say.

“Where did you get that?” Jemma cut him off as she turned her eyes to Coulson. Her tone was quiet but there was an edge to it as the weight of the vial’s contents pressed on her.

“It doesn’t matter,” Coulson turned his eyes to look at Jemma. “It’s here. It’s your decision whether we use it or not.”

Fitz released the breath he was holding and pushed into the room. He stepped to the table but didn’t reach for the vial, just stared at it. “Someone found another specimen to synthesize it from?” He asked as her marveled at the little vial. He and Simmons had spent hours trying to analyze the vial’s contents, trying to find it in Daisy’s blood after it had brought her back to them from the brink.

“Where?” Jemma demanded, locking Coulson’s stare with her own as she set her jaw. Should she feel relieved? This was the answer, wasn’t it? They could inject Daisy with this. It would bring her back. She was guarded by her own part-alien makeup from the side effects that others, like Coulson himself, had faced after TAHITI. Raina, she knew, had been able to synthesize it, but what she had made had gone into Garrett and there had been none left.

“Simmons-,” Coulson began to say.

“ _Where_?” Jemma gritted her teeth and demanded. There was something preventing her from rushing for a syringe to inject Daisy with the vial’s contents, something she couldn’t explain but that she wasn’t going to ignore. Deus ex Machina – this unexpected savior didn’t feel right. What would the consequences be? Would Daisy’s body react differently to the drug since she had been change by the terrigen crystals?

“Who _cares_?” Fitz asked. “I’ll get a syringe-,”

“No,” Jemma spoke firmly. She reached out and grabbed the vial, wrapping her hand tight around it as she picked it up without looking away from her stare down with Coulson. “Where did it come from?” she demanded once more.

“Fury,” Coulson answered, as if this was all Jemma would need to know to be on board with injected this shit into Daisy.

“Simmons, what does it matter?” Fitz asked. “It can help her – bring her back to you,” He gaped at Jemma. “Don’t you want that?”

“Fitz,” May shook her head when Fitz looked her way.

Fitz shook his head and looked at Jemma. “Jemma…this is what we needed – anything to bring her back, right? That’s the deal, it’s what we do…”

Jemma flinched when Fitz insinuated that she wouldn’t do anything and everything to bring Daisy back to them. Obviously she would do anything it took, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t consider her options carefully. This situation was different from the last time. She didn’t have to make an immediate decision, in a do or die setting.

“I need…a moment,” Jemma said when she finally spoke after staring down at the vial in her hand. She swallowed hard against the growing lump in her throat.

“Jemma-,” Fitz started to speak again.

“Alone,” Jemma cut him off. She glanced around at the various pairs of eyes on her. “Please,” she said. Slowly everyone started to file out. Jemma caught May’s eye. “W-would you stay?” she asked. May stopped in her spot and nodded.

“Jemma,” Coulson took a step closer to her. “I wouldn’t bring this to you to hurt her, I would never-,”

“I know,” Jemma forced out, avoiding Coulson’s gaze. “Please…just…a few moments.” She said.

Coulson was the last to leave, pulling the door shut behind him as the other waited in the hallway, tense. Bobbi and Mack began asking questions to Fitz and Coulson, trying to keep their voices down.

Jemma looked down at the vial in her hand and then clenched her eyes shut a moment. May approached her but didn’t reach out to touch her just yet. She was watching, studying Jemma carefully. The tears started down Jemma’s cheeks before she could stem them as she turned to the side of the bed and held onto the rail with her free hand. She inhaled and exhaled deep breaths and tried to stave off her shudders. She wanted to breakdown. She wanted to break things. She wanted to let all of the emotions she had been bottling up loose on the world and let someone else deal with their consequences. The only thing stopping her was the sight of Lily lying there, asleep with her baby blanket tucked around her, Groot tucked in one arm, her head on Daisy’s shoulder, the fingers of one of her hands fisted around stray curls of Daisy’s hair.

May finally approached her and brought her hand to rest on Jemma’s back between her shoulder blades. She remained silent and didn’t press Jemma for a decision or with an opinion on the matter. When Jemma’s shoulders shook, May used her arm around Jemma’s shoulders to turn her and pull her in for a hug. Jemma’s face pressed tight into May’s shoulder, wanting to stifle the sound as much as possible. May ushered Jemma around the bed and into the corner restroom, leaving the door open so that they would be able to see if Lily happened to wake up while they were there. May let Jemma cry without comment or judgement and just stood there with a firm grip on her. The team had been through a lot together and of all people, May could understand this situation in front of her, after Andrew.

“What do I do,” It wasn’t a question directed at May, per say, so much as in general. It was something she had to get out. “I don’t know what to do,” She sniffled.

May inhaled a slow breath and waited a few more minutes before speaking. “Breathe,” She said, calm and firm but gentle at the same time.

\----

“Lily?” Jemma brushed her fingers over Lily’s hair and down her back. “Sweetheart, wake up, it’s time for dinner,” She shook Lily’s shoulder gently.

Lily’s entire schedule was completely knocked off balance from everything that had happened. She scarcely let anyone take her away from the hospital room, save for Jemma convincing her to go with Bobbi and Hunter to get food for dinner. She always made it out as the others needing Lily’s help with the task, to give her something tangible she could ‘do,’ in this situation and so that she could get Lily out of the hospital room for short periods of time. She let out a cranky grumble when she turned away from Daisy. Jemma used the opportunity to pick her up, Groot, blanket and all and brought her to rest against her shoulder and her hip. She swayed slightly in her spot and kissed Lily’s temple as Lily yawned and rubbed at her eyes. “You don’t want to keep Aunt Bobbi and Uncle Lance waiting for dinner, do you?” she asked. She made a face to scrunch up her nose. “We know he’s a cranky bugger when he doesn’t eat, yeah?” She said, which prompted a small giggle from Lily.

“Heyyyyy, there’s no need for name calling, now,” Hunter made a face for Lily’s benefit as Jemma crossed to the couple standing by the door.

Jemma bounced Lily lightly on her hip. “See, he’s already starting to grump about,” she teased for Lily’s benefit. It was clear that Lily was beginning to adjust to the strange routine of the hospital by the way she, though still reluctant, she allowed herself to be passed to Lance and curled into his shoulder, clutching onto her blanket and her stuffed monkey. “Will you bring me some food back too?” she asked, running her hand over Lily’s hair. Lily nodded and yawned again. Jemma leaned over and kissed the side of her head again. Lance adjusted his hold on Lily and gently bounced her at his hip as he walked for the door, talking to her about what they would get for dinner from the hospital cafeteria to bring back, both deciding on cake and cookies as their meal of choice.

Bobbi reached out for Jemma’s arm and shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Mack and Fitz are coming with us. You guys just….text us whenever you need us to come back, okay?” She asked. Jemma nodded and thanked her and Bobbi gave her shoulder one more squeeze. She gave Daisy a last glance in the hospital bed and then steeled herself to join the others with Lily in the hall to head for the cafeteria, leaving Jemma, Coulson and May in the hospital room with Daisy. Jemma approached the side of the bed. The vial and an unopened syringe in its sterile packaging were sitting, waiting on the rolling tray table next to Daisy’s bed.

The hospital staff had been prepped for the procedure so that no one would be rushing in when Daisy’s machines went haywire, if they did, like they had last time, unless they were summoned. Jemma wasn’t sure what kind of strong arm technique that had taken from Coulson, but she didn’t really care just then.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” May asked. She exchanged a glance with Coulson as Jemma nodded.

Before she could talk herself out of it, Jemma pulled a pair of latex gloves on. She opened up the syringed and the vial and filled the syringe with the solution. She made sure to clear any air bubbles from the syringe and then stuck the needled into the injection tube of one of Daisy’s IV lines. She took one last look at Daisy and tried to tell herself that she wasn’t doing this just for selfish purposes – that it was because they all needed Daisy and not just that she needed her, that she couldn’t function in this world without Daisy, that she couldn’t just let go, that she wouldn’t let go. Jemma pushed the plunger down to send the liquid into the Iv line and when it was done she pulled the syringe out and set it and the vial down on the table, peeling the gloves off immediately. She leaned over the bed, reaching with one hand for Daisy’s forearm and resting the other along the top of her hair. “I’m sorry,” she whispered into Daisy’s ear, her voice cracking. “I love you…please forgive me,” She said. Moments later the machines started buzzing and sending alarms off. Daisy’s body lurched, arching off the bed as the convulsions started. Jemma clenched her eyes shut and held on, waiting for the agonizingly long moments to pass, for the machines’ readings to level off.

\----

Daisy had no idea how long she had been in the darkness, just that it was an agonizingly long time. She seemed to come in and out of consciousness there until there finally came a moment when she had opened her eyes and found herself…in a dimly lit hallway. With slow steps, she had wandered the halls, looking for anyone else while the dimmed lights flickered on and off. She took steady breaths, regulated. Her arms and legs felt stiff and heavy still. Her torso was riddled with aches and pains that ran deep into her bones.

She wandered for ages. Hours? Days? She wasn’t sure. She knew, this time, that she was stuck somewhere between consciousness and possible death. She couldn’t fight her way to either. Occasionally she heard voices and stopped to listen. They sounded different but she recognized them all. She listened as they spoke to her. She yearned to speak back, to squeeze their hands – anything to tell them she was there, to tell them she was trying to fight her way back to them.

For long hours she was stuck on one particular floor of this hospital that, in the end, she supposed was in her mind? Daisy wasn’t sure. She tried to call for Trip. He might be able to give her answers. Then she regretted the thought out of fear, worrying that she had only seen Trip because she had been so close to death’s door that he was able to reach her. There was a particular room that she hovered around. It seemed to be the one that she could hear the others talking best. Perhaps it was hers? Daisy wasn’t sure; she just wanted to be as close as possible. She wanted to figure this out, to bring herself back. She needed to see Lily and Jemma for herself. The wait was long and agonizing.

At the moment, she was sitting cross legged in the threshold of the door to the room. There was a thick tenseness in the air that Daisy couldn’t place. It was the feeling that settled in her gut just before a mission, or when her body was trying to warn her that something wasn’t right or danger was near. She stayed by the room, trying to figure out what was causing the feeling. It was while she was sitting there that she heard it. The elevator down the length of the corridor let out a ding.

Slowly, Daisy leaned back and turned her head to look in its direction. A dim streak of light from the elevator filled the hall in front of the doors and then a loud, gruff, gravelly rumble of a hum filled the air around the elevator and the hallway.

“ _Daiiiisy…Daiiiisy…_ ” the voice sung, the shadow of movement blending with the light as he moved from the elevator into the hallway, singing. “ _Give me your answer do…_ ”

Daisy’s eyes widened. She scrambled back and up to her feet, standing in the middle of the hallway and staring at Ward’s slowing approaching form from the other end of the hall.

“ _I’m hallllf crazy…all for the love of you,_ ” He pointed to her and then stopped singing and tipped his head back to let out a howl of wicked laughter.

Out of reflex, Daisy put her hands up in front of her, palms out. Ward might have been at least thirty feet away from her, but her immediate instinct was to attack him. Her heart began to race and beads of sweat formed on her forehead.

“Ohhhhh, come now – you wouldn’t hit an old friend, would you?” Ward sneered and smiled at her. As he stepped through the scant flickers of light, she could see the scars on his face. They were grizzly curves and angles. Daisy had her own scars from the fight in which she had killed him. It wasn’t even a thought that she hadn’t. She hadn’t let him live. She had been sure - _more_ than sure as she had thoroughly checked – that she had killed him. Whatever had been done to bring him back from that, it had left him permanently scarred. It had also left him strong enough to rip a car door off of its hinges with his bare hands. She pushed her hands forward but nothing happened. Her brow furrowed and Ward’s lips tipped up into a delighted, lopsided grin. He chuckled at her again, feeling he had the advantage with his size and skills where powers were gone. “Ah-ah-ah…your powers are no good here, _Daisy_ ,” He grinned and advanced at an even pace.

Daisy glanced at the hospital room next to her, reluctant to move away from it. Something was happening in there, she knew it. But Ward was out here. She shifted on her feet and tried to prepare to defend herself. Was this just her mind? Was it playing tricks on her? Like it had with Trip? Was she that close to Death’s door again? _Jem_ she thought to herself, _whatever it is…do it now_.

“You’re not even going to snark at me?” Ward sighed. “This would _almost_ be disappointing if I weren’t so pleased that I still leave you speechless after all these years,” A twisted smile lit up his features.

Daisy felt the roil of bile in her throat bubble up. She swallowed it down and kept her eyes on Ward.

“You don’t even have questions,” Ward said. “That’s interesting. I’m guessing you couldn’t get to the other floors from where you were, could you?” He grinned when her eyebrow flicked up and then dropped down, giving her away. “Yes,” he sauntered toward her. “Seems my team’s much more efficient than yours, Daisy,” He chuckled. “I had them put me back in here so I could find you.”

Daisy forced her features neutral even as her pulse began to race. Ward was possibly in the hospital with Jemma and Lily. His team possibly had a way to get him to her. Daisy had to wake up. She had to warn them. She had to get them out of there to safety.

Ward threw his head back and laughed. “You try so hard to be impassive. Tried to learn that from Melinda, did ya? It’s still written all over your face.” He grinned, pleased and taking full pleasure in the fear he knew he was causing her. “I wanted to make sure you knew what I was going to do to them…how I’m going to take them from you while you’re stuck in here, helpless. Always helpless when you act so strong and sturdy – it’ll be just like old times,” He chuckled as he stepped into her personal space without reaching for her or swinging.

Daisy instantly swung at him. Ward laughed as she landed punches, falling back. Soon he was on the ground with a bloody nose, laughing maniacally between punches. Her hands wrapped around his neck, desperate to get the ring of his laughter out of her ears. He grabbed her wrists, still laughing, gripping as hard as he could and pulled her hands just loose enough off his throat to speak. He lifted his head towards her, sitting up slightly, which caused Daisy’s hands to clench into fists. “I’m not going to kill you,” He dropped his voice to a low rumble. “I want you to see it, to feel their absence when you wake up, to know you fought for _nothing_.” He sneered.

Daisy’s eyes darkened. Her hands broke free and grabbed the sides of his, slamming it down into the floor below it. Ward grunted but then went right back to laughing in crazy cackle.

Daisy balled her left fist and reeled it back, preparing for another round of the hardest punches she could swing at Ward when a searing burn flushed through her arm. She froze in her spot, confused. She turned her head and looked back at the hospital room. Was that Jemma? She was…she was apologizing for something. “ _Jemma!_ ” She screamed the name as loud as she could. Maybe Jem would hear somehow since Daisy could hear her, right? She had to warn her. Jemma had to leave. She had to get Lily out of there. Before any other words could come out, her body lurched and she fell off of Ward and to her side on the ground, muscles seizing and convulsing as her eyes rolled up, the sounds of Ward’s maniacal laughter mixed with the sniffle and emotion cracked declarations of love Jemma made. And then, again, there was darkness.


	12. He's Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Warning:** This chapter contains sex, graphic violence, death, fighting and sobbing. 
> 
> I'm sorry for the delay in getting this posted. It was extremely difficult to write this one. I wanted to make sure it contained everything necessary for the flashback plots. It is an extremely long chapter, I'm simultaneously sorry and not sorry about that because I needed specific timeline things to play out to take you on this particular roller coaster. 
> 
> I hope it was worth the wait. Thank you for the comments, kudos, love and feedback! Feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think! 
> 
> If you're the kind of emotional person that I am, tissues may be required...  
> <3  
> \---------------------------------------------------------------------------

**_2017 – December 15th_ **

“I’m in,” Daisy spoke just loud enough for the radio hidden in her ear to pick up her words. They had set Bobbi and Lance up as the decoy couple under the guise of wanting to conceive a child instead of already having conceived and had already sent them in for one appointment with the fertility doctor of the office. Today they were going in for their second consultation that was to include a blood draw for analysis. On Bobbi and Lance’s end, their role was to act the part of a loving, if somewhat squabbly couple, ready to conceive their child and, today, to swap out the blood work from Bobbi with a sample from Daisy since it would pick up the markers the Hydra personnel were looking for. The game was simple – if the switch worked, the hydra lab would let the doctor know to accept Bobbi and Lance as a patient group and they would go from there. If the swap didn’t work, it was likely they would be given a referral to a specialist to get them out of the hydra fertility front’s hair…or tentacles.

Daisy had discovered during Bobbi and Lance’s last appointment that the facility housed its own secured data center in a sub-level basement. It wasn’t ideal to have to break into it, but it wasn’t impossible. It was a bit dicey for a bit, though. Daisy had come close to aborting the mission, having Bobbi call in to reschedule the appointment for some reason or another even though she thought that would look suspicious on their part. Thankfully it hadn’t come to that.

“Bobbi and Hunter just entered the office and are checking in,” Coulson replied. “How much time do you need?”

“Half an hour would be nice,” Daisy retorted in a murmur.

“What if you have less?” Fitz asked, watching various screens in front of him.

“Their systems are spoofed. I was very thorough,” Daisy replied. “I’ll improvise.”

“The deal was in, out and come home in one piece,” Jemma cut into the ear piece. “No exceptions, Daisy.”

“Yes ma’am,” Daisy replied. She tried not to think about anything going wrong while simultaneously preparing for something to do just that - good ol’ Murphy’s law and all that.

Chatter was kept to a minimum. Daisy worked and listened to the appointment as it played out. She had a lot of work to do in order to implant an undetectable bug into the data center’s mainframe that would siphon of its data into a designated mainframe back at the base to analyze. Bobbi and Lance played up the nervous potential new parents like champs. They easily managed the switcheroo with the blood vials.

“Now, then, Mister Cunningham,” The doctor said to Lance. He held a plastic cup out to him. “If you’d like to take this into the room down the hall, we’ll need your contribution.”

“My...my what?” Lance stammered as he looked down at the cup in his hand with a horrified expression.

The doctor smirked. “Was I unclear about our evaluation schedule in the last appointment? I do apologize. Fertility analysis does require some work for both partners, I’m afraid,” He said.

Bobbi bit the inside of her cheek. She let out a laugh and pressed a hand to Lance’s chest. “Forgive my sweet, _darling_ husband, doctor - the silliest things fluster him,” She said with a saccharine smile. She turned to Lance. “You’ll be just fine, honey, won’t you?”

Daisy bit her lip to stifle a chuckle. Fitz couldn’t cover it, which in the end, earned him a swat on the back of the head from Jemma even though she had snickered softly.

“Hunter,” May interrupted over the comlinks. “Go ahead and take your time with this. Performance anxiety is as good a cover as any to give Daisy extra time.”

“Performance anxiety,” Lance muttered at the cup as he looked down at it.

“What was that, son?” The doctor asked

Lance inhaled a deep breath. “Alright, yes. No problem. I’ll be just a tick,” He nodded and Bobbi grinned. She made a show of pulling him in for a kiss before shooing him off down the hall. The doctor settled in for a long questionnaire to ask Bobbi while they waited.

“Don’t worry, mate,” Fitz piped up after they listened to Lance pacing once he reached the quiet room. “No one’s listening,” He snickered.

“Fitz,” Jemma rolled her eyes.

“Bloody hell,” Lance murmured to himself.

“I’ll let you know when I’m finished,” Daisy piped up. “So that you can, too,” She had to get a little zinger in there somewhere.

“Yuck it up, clowns,” Lance sighed. He looked down at the cup and then pulled out his cell phone to pull up some music.

“Ahhh, setting the mood, are we?” Fitz asked.

“Fitz - that’s enough. Focus,” Coulson scolded calmly.

“Don’t like the idea of them analyzing my dna,” Lance murmured.

“Mine either, but now they’ve got the vial of it, so,” Daisy replied. “Ante up, cowboy.”

Lance sighed and leaned his head from side to side, cracking his neck as he hopped from foot to foot, trying to psyche himself up for the task at….well, hand.

\---

“Bug’s in place. Mack, boot her up and let me know if it’s gone online.” Daisy said. It had been about twenty minutes, but she was sure Hunter thought it was longer.

“Standby,” Mack replied.

“Bloody hell,” Fitz murmured.

“Was that a good or bad bloody hell?” Daisy asked.

“How many patients do they have…?” Fitz asked in wonder.

Daisy could only assume that meant her job was a success. “You in?” She asked.

“Yeah,” Coulson answered. “We’re in.” He sounded more disturbed than relieved, which set Daisy on edge. Before she could ask, Coulson spoke again. “May, get Daisy out of there. Bobbi, Hunter, you too. Finish the job and make your way back to base. Make sure you’re not followed.”

“Bob,” Lance replied with a sigh. “You gotta convince him to let me just do this at home or something…” He said. Bobbi was speaking with the doctor still when Lance spoke. They were actually discussing Lance’s performance issue at the moment. The doctor was fairly insistent about having the sample to test. He insisted it was important to keep everything organized and together, all in one place and efficient. Bobi was left with no choice but to slip away from the doctor’s office and into the quiet room to assist in acquiring and adequate sample for the good doctor.

\--

**_2017 -- December 24th_ **

Daisy was overwhelmed. The only person in the entirely packed Simmons ‘estate’ (no, really, Daisy had heard one of Jemma’s cousins refer to it as that - it belonged to her paternal grandmother and it looked like something that was probably rented out for a British period piece film quite regularly) that was at all aware of the fact that Daisy was overwhelmed...was Jemma. Daisy was a people person, sure. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t spent holidays with Jemma’s family before. It was just that this was the largest holiday gathering that they had attended together and it was a bit daunting. Daisy had no family to bring into the mix. It was just her and a sea of Simmons’ and Simmons-in-laws.

Daisy could handle small talk. She could even navigate the more awkward personal questions that had some heavy answers to them. She could handle it. She was handling it. She loved Jemma’s family, and she liked her extended family too. She would gladly woo them all to make Jemma happy. In truth, the only thing she wanted right that very moment, however, was to slip away somewhere quiet with her wife to snuggle up somewhere warm with Jemma and the baby, to watch stupid Christmas movies while murmuring quietly about the future. Daisy thought it was a pretty simple Christmas wish, really. But they hadn’t even reached dessert yet, so Daisy had quite a while to go before this wish could be granted.

She knew that Jemma was aware of the fact that she was overwhelmed, by the fact that every so often after their eyes would meet, Jem would send Arthur swooping in with a refill on her drink. Daisy wasn’t sure what Jemma was hoping to accomplish in getting her drunk but, after the third refill, she had begun to barely sip at her drink. She didn’t want to be intoxicated tonight. She just wanted to be in the moment. She glanced in Jemma’s direction, watching as Arthur’s fiance pressed a hand to Jemma’s belly while one of her younger cousins pressed an ear to the other side. Whatever the twelve year old had said sent Jemma’s belly bobbing with laughter. She spotted Daisy watching her and smiled across the room at her. Daisy managed to give Jemma a smile and a small wink just before Jemma’s grandmother, Lillian, pulled her back into their conversation.

Daisy liked Lillian. She was a few inches shorter than Jemma, but they had the same nose, the same hazel colored eyes and the same expanse of freckles across their foreheads. She had been born in the early nineteen-twenties, spoke like she was still a spry twenty-something year old and had no shortage of tall tales that Daisy hazarded to guess weren’t so tall at all. After the things she had seen in life, there was a lot to be believed about a good old fashioned story. She had all manner of stories from her time as an ambulance driving during parts of the Blitz. Lillian was slow when she walked but she did so without a cane and though she had taken Daisy’s arm at the elbow while leading her towards the library room of the estate, Daisy had known immediately that it was not for it assistance, so much as for the human connection it provided.

Jemma hadn’t spied her grandmother dragging Daisy away, so when she had let her eyes make a pass around the room and hadn’t spotted her wife, her brow had furrowed. She wondered if Daisy had stolen away to a restroom or one of the upper bedrooms for a break from all the prying into her personal life. She knew those questions made Daisy squirm after a while. Arthur came by, tugged along by one of their cousins’ young children, begging for an escort to the dessert table full of cookies that was too tall for him to reach. Arthur trailed behind the boy, chuckling as they went. Jemma caught him by the elbow.

“All right, Jems?” Arthur asked when he looked her way. He cast a glance down at her stomach as if he’d be able to see something wrong there.

“Have you seen where Daisy ran off to?” Jemma asked her brother.

Arthur shook his head. “No, but I heard Gran telling her war stories not too long ago - must’ve taken her to the secret lair,” He chuckled.

Jemma grimaced. “She still does that?” She sighed.

Arthur laughed. “Creatures of habits, we Simmons’ are, yes?” He called as he was tugged further away again toward the sweets table.

“Patterns can be broken!” Jemma called after him teasingly. She excused herself from a conversation then with her aunt and made her way through the crowded room to head for the grand staircase to the second floor. She took her time as she went and when she drew close, she hung by the door, just listening while Daisy and her grandmother discussed....classical music?? Now there was something she hadn’t realized Daisy had, apparently, had abundant knowledge about.

After listening for a while, Jemma waited for a record the two were discussing to finish playing and then knocked on the halfway open door to announce her presence as she rounded the threshold and smiled at the two of them. “I was wondering where you’d snuck off too,” She smiled.

Daisy’s eyes left Lillian’s and trained first on Jemma’s bulging belly before they traveled up and trained on her eyes. “Hey,” She spoke, as if they were suddenly by themselves in the room.

“Yes, yes, I’m sorry, Darling, I stole her away for myself for just a tick,” Lillian was already pulling herself up to her feet and shuffling over to the record player so she could stop the needle and close the heavy wooden lid on the old thing. Daisy had started to move to help her once she had torn her eyes away from Jemma only to have Lillian jokingly swat her hands away. “No, no,” She said when the girls made to head back to the party with her. “You two steal away from the chaos for a moment,” She smiled and gave Jemma’s cheek and then belly each a loving pat before she made her way out of the room and down the hall, singing out the music notes of the song her and Daisy had just been listening to.

Jemma watched her grandmother go with a fond smile. She turned and fixed Daisy with a curious expression, though her lips were tipped upward, screwed up in an amused and generally content smile. “I had no idea you knew so much about classical music,” She mused.

Daisy’s cheeks lit up just a few shades of pink. “There was only one nun at St. Agnes that liked Rock N Roll music. It was rare the others would let her near the record player,” She said as she stepped closer to Jemma and slipped her arms around her waist. “It was pretty much all we had - that and a severely beat up VHS of the original _Fantasia_.”

Jemma smiled and tilted her head as she considered this. It wasn’t something she had ever thought about - though she had accidentally stumbled onto Daisy’s treasure trove of country music playlists on her laptop once and was still occasionally teasing her about it. “Hmmm,” she hummed, lifting her hands to slide along Daisy’s arms, up to her shoulders. She hooked her arms loosely around Daisy’s neck and slipped her fingers into the small tufts of hair at the nape of her neck. “And yet...you also have knowledge of arrangements, their composers and their histories…” She narrowed her eyes at Daisy suspiciously while she grinned.

Daisy shrugged. “Just cause I dropped out of high school, doesn’t mean I didn’t read,” She said with a small smile that twisted higher when she felt a swift kick from the baby after she pulled Jemma forward until their stomachs had pressed together lightly

“Hmm,” Jemma hummed again, narrowing her eyes teasingly. “What other secrets have I yet to discover about you?”

Daisy tilted her head. “You know all the important ones,” She said. “The rest I guess you’ll have to discover as we go,” A smile played on her lips just before Jemma grinned and leaned up to kiss her. When the short kiss broke, Jemma moved her arms down around Daisy’s middle and brought her head to rest on Daisy’s shoulder, nearly hypnotized by the way Daisy’s fingers pressed into the small of her back, kneading against the tiny achy knots that seemed to linger there more and more often the more the baby grew. “Tired?” Daisy asked, running her other hand up and down the middle of her back.

“Are you enjoying the party at least a little?” Jemma asked suddenly from Daisy’s shoulder.

Daisy’s shoulders shook with soft chuckles. “What?” she asked in response to the seemingly random question.

Jemma picked her head up but her eyes focused on down on Daisy’s chin and the spot where her collarbones met. She shrugged her shoulders up, feeling somewhat bashful suddenly in a way that Daisy could have only described as completely adorable. “I just mean…you had the overwhelmed look in your eyes most of the night,” she said. “I was just hoping this big party wasn’t completely awful for you,” she said. “I know some of my extended relatives can be a bit much, and that questions about your family history make you squirm, I’m sure they were hounding you for it…”

Daisy couldn’t help but smile. She kissed the tip of Jemma’s nose. “Jem, I love them,” she assured. Jemma’s eyes lifted to meet hers and Daisy smiled again. “I have a terrible habit of almost always preferring to be home alone with you and cuddling that I cannot seem to tame so…” She scrunched her nose slightly. “Admittedly, I have been thinking about that for at least the last three hours every time I’ve looked your way.”

 

Jemma’s cheeks tinged a few shades of rosy pink. She brought her hands up to either side of Daisy’s face and pulled her down for another round of kisses, burying her fingers in Daisy’s hair. “Let’s duck out and head back to Mum and Dad’s then,” she said between a few of the kisses.

Daisy laughed against her lips. “Sure that’ll fly?” she asked, stealing a few more quick kisses before Jemma could pull back.

“Who’s going to argue with a cranky, tired pregnant woman with swollen ankles?” She wrinkled her nose and grinned.

“I love you,” Daisy let out a sigh as Jemma slipped her hand into Daisy’s and dragged her from the room, back toward the party so they could start making their rounds of goodbyes.

A short ride with one of Jemma’s cousins later and she and Daisy let themselves into Jemma’s parents’ house. Daisy hung up their coats by the door and then followed Jemma up the stairs to her old bedroom where they typically stayed when visiting her family for the holidays. Since they had the time, the two indulged in a hot bath, soaking down into the deep claw-footed tub in the bathroom that connected Jemma’s old room and Arthur’s old room, which was now study. Daisy had set the water and Jemma had grabbed changes of clothes and extra towels.

Daisy had climbed in and helped Jemma in. She settled down in the tub behind Jemma, who had stifled a slight yawn when she had leaned back and brought her forehead to rest in the crook of Daisy’s neck. Daisy’s arms were laced around her, palms pressing down over the round of her belly, watching as a foot pressed against the skin of Jemma’s belly and disturbed the water for a moment. Jemma had snickered at one point when Daisy had timed humming the theme to _Jaws_ out perfectly and tapped her belly to get kicks in reply.

“He’s very active tonight,” Jemma murmured.

“ _He_?” Daisy teased before she turned her head and kissed the top of Jemma’s.

“Or she,” Jemma smiled and brought her hands down on top of where Daisy’s rested on her belly. “We should also probably refine the name list,” She nodded. They had been trying to avoid finding out whether the baby was a boy or a girl as best as they could but their last ultrasound before the holidays had left Daisy piping up that ‘ _Bit difficult to continue pretending the kid’s possibly got a tail, dontcha think?’_ She could still see the goofy grin that had been on Daisy’s face when she had teasingly said it.

“You mean we _aren’t_ going with Elvis after all?” Daisy’s feigned gasp earned a chuckle from Jemma.

“I thought you wanted my parents to continue liking you?” Jemma teased back. She shifted her weight and pressed back closer to Daisy, as if they weren’t already pressed closely together in the warm, bubble-filled water of the bath.

Daisy chuckled, shifting her on weight as Jemma moved. She leaned down and kissed the top of Jemma’s shoulder, moving her fingers to trace down over the sides of the baby bump and to drag along the curve of Jemma’s hips. Her lips pressed against the side of Jemma’s neck, nibbling at the patch of thin skin behind her ear and against the bottom of her earlobe. Jemma let out a soft hum of approval, bringing her hand up over her shoulder and letting her fingers tangle into the hair at the back of Daisy’s head, urging her on.

Daisy’s hands took diverging paths, the right traced down along the inside of Jemma’s thigh. She dragged her nails up to meet at the folded crease of her center just as Jemma’s legs shifted further apart and her hips pressed forward, seeking out the welcomed touch. Daisy’s fingers slipped along the center line between her folds from hood down until she had cupped against her sex, grinding her heel down in just the right motion that made Jemma’s hips roll forward again.

Her mouth played along the known pressure point of Jemma’s neck and shoulder, paying some extra attention to sucking just hard enough at her pulse point to coax a soft moan of her name from Jemma’s lips. Her left hand had slipped its way up along Jemma’s side, around the curve of her ribs and up to her breast, her fingers gliding first to trace under the swelled pouch of flesh before cupping over it to massage and squeeze without too much force. Daisy had learned her lesson about rough play with the increased swell and extra sensitivity of Jemma’s chest when Jemma had nearly thrown her off their bed after an unfortunate nibbling incident just a few weeks prior.

Jemma seemed to remember where they were a moment later, gasping as Daisy’s fingers made easy work of the foreplay, stroking along her center, slipping one digit between the folds, pressing the flat of her thumb in a slow, firm circle across and around the engorged nub of nerves of her clit. She bit down into her bottom lip and then let out an anxious, “M-my parents…” Even as her hips rocked against Daisy’s hand and her back arched to her touches along her chest, her head angled to give Daisy more access to her neck.

Daisy let out a single chuckle against her neck. “Aren’t home yet,” She countered, giving her earlobe a quick nibble before she dragged her teeth along the spot behind her ear. Both actions sent a rolling shiver down Jemma’s spine to her toes. Her fingers curled, fisting tighter into Daisy’s hair, nails scraping against her scalp. Daisy took it as the green light to continue. She built the tense coils of Jemma’s core up, taking her time pleasing her, feeling somewhat victorious whenever Jemma pled for a change in pace. She wound Jemma up to the edge twice before easing off her strokes until Jemma made a final plea. She had slipped three of her digits inside her wife then, pressing her thumb against her clit and rolling in circles as she curled her fingers and stroked a steady rhythm against that one sweet spot that made Jemma sound like she was speaking in tongues. Jemma called her name and Daisy twisted her wrist, pressing further inside her. Jemma’s fingers dug into Daisy’s scalp. Her other hand clenched at Daisy’s wrist as her thighs clamped tight around her hand.

It was at the exactly moment Jemma sucked in a gulp of air, knowing the fall over the edge was coming, that the front door downstairs slammed and Jemma’s mother called out that they were home. Daisy’s hand left Jemma’s chest and covered Jemma’s mouth. Jemma was powerless to stop the fireworks that burst behind her clenched eyelids. She bit down hard into Daisy’s hand to stifle the loud cry that strangled in her throat as her hips snapped against the rhythmic pull of Daisy’s fingers, riding the forceful surges of pleasure that rocked through her body until she was left trembling and breathlessly exhaling shaky puffs of air against Daisy’s neck, too spent for just that moment to be completely mortified.

Daisy let go of Jemma’s mouth and untangled her hand from between her legs. She shifted and brought Jemma’s head to rest against her shoulder again. Daisy kissed her forehead just as Jemma was dropping a small kiss to her collarbone. Jemma’s mother knocked on the door and Daisy was sure that if she could have, Jemma would have slipped back and melded into the tub’s façade. Jemma’s mother called something through the door about not spending too much time prolonged in hot water because of the baby and Jemma felt the chuckle Daisy let out as it rippled up her throat. Daisy was the one who responded to say that they were just about to head to bed and to wish the elder Mrs. Simmons a goodnight and a Happy Christmas.

“Hm, you _do_ look a little flushed,” Daisy teased when she leaned back to look at Jemma and her furiously blushing cheeks.

Jemma flushed further at the impish smile on her wife’s face. “You’re positively _wicked_ ,” she whispered just before Daisy leaned over to catch her mouth with her own, swallowing up the tail end of the word. “I love you,” Jemma managed against her lips in the quick gaps of air they allowed between kisses.

Once Jemma had managed to catch her breath and regain her motor skills, they had pulled the plug from the drain and climbed from the tub. It took a while to actually manage to tug on their pajamas and migrate back into the bedroom, using the extra towels to help dry the spots each other’s hair that had gotten wet, because Daisy couldn’t seem to stop stealing kisses and Jemma wasn’t all that inclined to stop returning each and every one of them.

The old house was on the drafty side so Jemma turned on the gas fireplace in the corner with the flip of a switch, turning the knob next to the switch to set the heat level. When Jemma was a kid, she had told Daisy, it was an actual fireplace but she was never allowed to mess with any fire in it. Her father would set the fire and shut the metal chain link guard and would periodically come into her room to adjust the kindling as it dwindled through the night. She had returned from the academy one holiday to find that the real fireplaces had been replaced by the fake fireplace that turned on and off with a switch with adjustable heat. She didn’t say so but Daisy could tell there was something about the old fireplace that Jemma had liked better than the gas one.

Once they both had dried their hair, Daisy gathered all the towels and put them in the hamper in the bathroom. She cut the bathroom light on her way back to the queen sized bed and climbed in behind Jemma, who snuggled back against her and brought her arm down along the one Daisy wrapped around her middle, their hands coming to rest on the finally somewhat restful baby bump. Jemma’s free hand found its way under the pillows until a few of her fingers managed to curl around the hand Daisy had stuffed up under them.

Daisy kissed the back of her shoulder and then the back of her head as they settled under the covers, easily keeping each other warm. Daisy loved Jemma’s family. She loved the fact that they had accepted her in as one of their own, that they emailed and texted her as well as Jemma. She loved that they had become her extended family. But this, right here, simply laying down and tucking in for bed, with Jemma and the baby, this was all she had wanted for the holiday. It was...the beginning and the end of everything for Daisy. Whatever was happening in the world, whatever catastrophe, whatever new discovery or challenge - the only thing that mattered in that very moment was the weight of Jemma’s hand on hers, the occasional thump of the baby’s fist or foot against her fingertips, the melodic hum at the tail end of Jemma’s steady exhales, the way Daisy’s heart skipped a few beats when Jemma murmured out a sleepy, ‘I love you’ in the orange glow of the fireplace.

Jemma shifted and pulled Daisy’s hand down out from under the pillows. “Did I hurt you earlier?” she asked, kissing roughly the spot she thought she had bitten on Daisy’s hand earlier. It had turned out to be the ring finger of her left hand and, though Jemma couldn’t see it in the dark, she had left behind a few impressions of her teeth.

Daisy let out a stifled chuckle into Jemma’s hair and curled her fingers around Jemma’s. “No,” she assured before she kissed the back of Jemma’s head again.

“Good,” Jemma snuggled back further against the warmth of being wrapped up in Daisy’s arms. She inhaled a deep breath and let out another melodic little hum on the long exhale.

“Are you okay?” Daisy asked, just to be sure, as she adjusted the covers around them to make sure they were tucked in properly to keep drafts out.

“I am perfectly happy,” Jemma leaned back, turning her head slightly. Daisy picked her head up to look down at her and she spotted Jemma’s sneaky little smile in the dark. “And you’re to blame,” She whispered.

Daisy felt the way her heart flipped over multiple times, fluttering about in her chest. She was glad for the darkness since it covered the sappy way her eyes welled but still let Jemma see the way she was smiling. She dipped her head to bring their lips together for a sweet, lingering kiss. “Merry Christmas, Jem,” she whispered afterward, bringing their noses to bump lightly together.

“Happy Christmas, Daisy,” Jemma grinned as Daisy settled back down behind her. Daisy dropped one last kiss to the back of Jemma’s head before she tucked her chin on top of it and they cuddled up once more. Daisy wasn’t sure how long it took either of them to fall asleep but she knew it could only have been a few minutes of contently listening to each other’s steady breathing before they were both lulled into restful slumber.

\-----  
**_2018 -- January 6th_**

Jemma collapsed back onto the bed as soon as she reached it. Daisy followed her with a doting smile on her face as Jemma let out an exhausted sigh. She leaned down and slipped Jemma’s shoes off for her before picking her legs up and moving to sit down on the bed, pulling Jemma’s feet into her lap.

“I think that’s the happiest I’ve ever seen your brother,” Daisy said as she picked up one of Jemma’s feet and started to work her fingers into it, pressing and massaging over the spots that seemed tense or cramped.

Jemma let out a gasp after she had leaned up onto her elbows. Her eyes rolled up into her head and she sighed as Daisy worked on her foot. “Mmmm, he was ecstatic the first time he beat Super Mario Brothers,” the comment ended in another sigh that hung off her jaw as Daisy kept working on her sore foot and ankle.

Daisy laughed. “Alice’s announcement at dinner I think might’ve topped his video game victories,” She teased.

Jemma beamed a bright smile. “So glad that was captured on so many cameras,” She laughed. “He looked positively delighted and terrified all at once,” She snickered.

“Mmm, being told you’re gonna be a parent’ll do that to ya,” Daisy wrinkled her nose as she set Jemma’s foot down and went to work on the other.

“Are you terrified of the prospect?” Jemma asked as she pushed herself to sit up, leaning her weight on the bed behind her on her palms.

Daisy chuckled. “Fuck, yes,” She said, though she was grinning a perfectly content and happy smile at Jemma. “Aren’t you?”

Jemma considered this a moment. Now that they had made it so far into the pregnancy and had been getting all greenlights and aces from the doctor, she felt much more confident that everything would be alright with their little miracle Elvis. “Maybe a little,” she shrugged. “It’s fleeting,” She leaned over and kissed Daisy’s shoulder.

Daisy smiled and then tilted her head thoughtfully “Does it ever upset you that we didn’t do this the traditional way?” She asked.

Jemma let out a snort of laughter. “We could hardly do it the traditional way, Darling,” she said.

Daisy shook her head. “No, I mean, the wedding,” She said. “We definitely didn’t do that the traditional way.”

Jemma shifted and sat up straighter. She reached for Daisy’s face with both of her hands and leaned their foreheads together. “I love the way we’ve done everything so far,” She grinned. “We did everything according to the Daisy and Jemma handbook - make it up as we go, keep calm and I...really freaking love you,” she grinned and then closed the gap between them for a long kiss that left them both breathless.  
“I really freaking love you,” Daisy echoed with a smile.

“I’m glad you feel that way, because I’m about to send you on a mission for pie…” Jemma said. Daisy laughed and kissed her again.

\----  
**_2018 -- January 23rd_**

“What is...what is that?” Jemma’s voice was aghast in Daisy’s earpiece.

The team was in a warehouse that they had found the address to in one of the many files Daisy’s bug had pilfered from the Hydra data center. It was underneath a convention center front that kept it hidden. Daisy was in the third sub-basement level. Their goal had been to find Bobbi and Hunter and get the hell out of there. Daisy and Mack made up one team, Coulson and May another. Fitz and Jemma were nearby on the bus, waiting with a handful of field agents for further instructions. During the fake ‘emergency’ doctor’s visit Lance and Bobbi had scheduled (their goal had been to slip a tracker into the doctor’s lab coat to trail his moves specifically), Bobbi and Hunter’s communication links had suddenly gone silent. Their trackers had lasted until they had arrived at the warehouse. Daisy had found the address among the files and the team had moved out to mount a rescue effort.

Mack and Daisy had made their way through the second floor without finding anything but unused labs and offices before they had made it to the third sub-level. At first it had seemed like more unused offices and then they had turned a corner and entered a large room that was the size of a football field with twenty foot high ceilings. The room was filled with rows upon rows of long suspended animation chambers that were almost ten feet tall. At top and bottom they were connected to all manner of wires and machinery. They hummed with life as their occupants breathed through respirators. They were suspended in the tubes in a garish looking orange colored liquid. Various tubes and monitors were connected to their arms and chests.

“This is some kind of glitch in the Matrix, right?” Mack murmured to himself.

“Doubt they’re using humans as batteries, mate,” Fitz replied, sounding equally baffled.

Daisy frowned. She pressed forward, knowing Jemma and Fitz were watching through the cameras Daisy and Mack were wearing. She knew the feed was recording too, so she made sure to get glimpses of everything possible as they moved along the rows.

“Wait...are they-,”

“Clones,” Daisy finished for Mack.

“They’re not all the same, though,” Fitz said and Daisy could practically see the frown on his face just listening to him.

“Each row seems to be a different set of clones,” Daisy murmured as they continued. She stopped when she saw a familiar face among them.

In her earpiece, Daisy her Jemma gasp. “Is that…”

“Mike…” Daisy breathed the name. Mack caught up to her just as she was rushing down the row to confirm that the entire row was full of what appeared to be clones of Mike Peterson. There were rows upon rows of people she didn’t recognize, but the ones whose faces she did were the more horrifying: Alisha, Grant Ward himself, Kara, Chan Ho Yin, Lori Henson. Inhumans, Centipede and Hydra alike, they were all in the tubes. An army in waiting? Daisy came to a complete stop when she turned a row and found the tubes to be full of copies of her father.

“Daisy…” Jemma said her name softly when Mack had failed to move her from the spot she was glued in, staring at the tube in front of her.  
“C’mon, Tremors,” Mack nudged her shoulder and tried to urge her to move.

The sound of machinery made Daisy look down the end of the row that they were standing in. Before anything else could happen Mack pulled her out of sight and down out of the way. They were hidden well from overhead views and anyone peeking down the aisles. Daisy turned her head and stared up at the clone of her father in the tube next to her. How had they done this? _What_ exactly were they going to do with all of them?

“Daisy,” Jemma said softly in her ear. “I know…” She paused. “Focus.” She ordered. “Don’t you dare get distracted. You come home to us. With Bobbi and Hunter.”

Daisy swallowed but gave her head a small nod. The commotion down the end of the aisle turned out to be Bobbi. She was gagged and her hands were bound behind her. From the sounds of it, she was putting up a fight as they tried to drag her along. Daisy moved to look down the next row. The tubes were empty in this row and...one at the end was open? Daisy’s eyes widened.

Down the end of the row, Bobbi swung her head back and cracked one of the guards trying to prod her into the tube with some of form of electrified cattle prod. He collapsed to the ground in a heap. Two more guards went after her and Bobbi used the momentum of one to throw the other into the tube. She kicked the Plexiglas door shut and the guard began to panic and beat against the glass to get out as the tube immediately started to fill with the orange liquid. Regaining his balance, the last guard swung for Bobbi and punched her square in the cheek. Bobbi fell back and used the spot on the floor to pull her arms around her legs to put them in front of her. She started to scramble to her feet as more guards came.

“Daisy, don’t-,” Mack said but it was too late, Daisy had pushed a hand palm out and knocked the row of running guards clear across the room in the direction they had come from, knocking over the scientists who had been scrambling with both the guards and then with the tube that Bobbi had knocked the guard into. Bobbi’s head whipped around. Her eyes were wide and feral when she spotted Daisy, who had immediately leapt to her feet and rushed down the row towards her. Bobbi screamed round the tape on her mouth and shook her head violently.

“Get down!” Daisy shouted. Bobbi only had time to drop to her knees before Daisy’s hands were up again, sending out shockwaves against the incoming onslaught. Mack was close on her heels.

“May, Coulson, get to sub-level three. Daisy and Mack have found Bobbi. You’re going to want to see what else they’ve found,” Jemma spoke over the communication links. Fitz was watching a number of the screens with alarm written over his face.

“We’ve got Hunter,” Coulson replied. “En route to sub-level three now,” He said. “Have the team get the Bus ready for immediate flight.”

“On it,” Fitz replied.

Daisy made it to Bobbi. She threw her hand out and sent an approaching guard flying so hard into one of the backs of the tubes it sent sparks flying everywhere as the electronics shorted out. Bobbi swayed in her spot, her eyes rolling up slightly. Daisy caught her before she fell and peeled the duct tape from her mouth quickly while trying to be as gentle as possible. “Bobbi! Hey, Bobbi, can you hear me?” She lightly smacked at Bobbi’s cheeks.

Bobbi was breathing heavily and Daisy realized just as Bobbi started murmuring a word over and over again that the scientists had injected her with something by the glaring red mark on the inside of her elbow.

“Bobbi! Bobbi, what did they inject you with? Bobbi!” She shouted now, unabashed. The whole facility would know they were there in moments from the fighting anyway. “Hey, no - don’t close your - Bobbi!” Daisy hauled off and slapped Bobbi across the cheeks.

For a moment Bobbi’s eyes fluttered open, heavy lidded, fighting against the drugs as her head hung back limply. “....Trap,” She murmured once more before her head lulled to the side and she was out cold.

“Is she…”

“She’s alive,” Daisy replied to Mack. “Can you?” She looked at him. Mack holstered his pistol for the moment. She hefted Bobbi up and over his shoulder, wrapping an arm around the back of her legs. Daisy scrambled to her feet as Mack pulled his gun back out of its holster. “We need to get out of here,” Daisy said. Mack just nodded. Daisy led the way, using her powers when she could and her hand to hand skills when necessary.

They took a wrong turn on their way out of the third floor level and came into a large room similar to the clone tube room only this one held small tubes full of...human babies suspended in some kind of bluish watery gel. Each tube had a panel next to it that seemed to have information about the baby and what kind of inhuman DNA it held and was being harvested for.

“Daisy we…”  
The sounds of a firefight let her know that Coulson, May and Hunter had made it to sub-level three. Hunter was screaming for Bobbi in a manner Daisy was sure she would have been shouting for Jemma - desperate and feral, crazed and determined. There was no time to get more information, nothing informed at least. Daisy unceremoniously ripped an external hard drive from its wiring at a computer in the corner of the room before she led the way out and they met up with Coulson, May and Hunter.

“D-Daisy,” Jemma’s voice was shaky.

“I know, Jem,” Daisy replied, assuming Jem was shaken by what she had seen on the screens.

“It’s a trap,” May said.

“Bobbi told us,” Mack nodded.

“Is she-,”

“She’s breathing,” Daisy nodded at Hunter.

“Daisy,” Jemma’s voice sounded more urgent now.

“Jem, we’re on our way back now,” Daisy assured.

She was met with the sound of slow clapping over the comlinks. Daisy stopped their trek cold in its tracks. She held her breath.

“I have to hand it to you, Skye,” Ward’s voice filtered into their ears through the comlinks. “You certainly never fail to make an entrance,” He laughed. “I didn’t think you’d fall for this easy of a trap to let me get my hands on what I really wanted from you,” He sneered. Daisy heard a yelp on the comlink and knew it was Jemma.

“Jem,” She whispered as fear wrapped itself around her heart and attempted to squeeze the life out of her.

“M’all right,” Jemma murmured.

Ward laughed. “Sure you are! For now,” He chuckled. “I can’t damage you when you’re carrying the key to the success of my program, now can I?”

“Ward-,”

“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this,” Ward clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “Lay it on me, Skye - what are you going to do to me, hm?” He challenged.

Daisy ground her teeth together. “Jem, I love you,” She said. “Everything’s gonna be okay,” She promised.

Ward laughed. Daisy yanked the camera off of where it was clipped to her, threw it to the ground and smashed it with the heel of her boot. Daisy looked at Coulson who had just finished doing the same and nodded. May and Mack smashed their cameras and they split up again. Hunter and Mack took Bobbi with them to get clear of the facility to meet up with a new extraction team Coulson had ordered for them. Coulson, May and Daisy raced through the facility to get out and head for the bus.

“Where are you taking us!?” Jemma shouted to let them know that she and Fitz were being taken from the bus. She managed to give them a few more clues about where in the facility they were being taken before Jemma’s comlink was removed and destroyed.

\---

“You don’t have to do this!” Daisy shouted at Ward. It had taken hours of fighting throughout the facility back and forth in order to finally come face to face with Ward and Jemma. Mack had gotten Bobbi and Hunter to safety and then had returned to start rigging explosive in the warehouse along with a team of Inhumans who were dispatched to help locate and retrieve Fitz and the agents who had been captured with Jemma. Daisy’s fight in the facility had taken her to a grand theater of the convention center building it had been hidden inside. 

Ward was up on the stage of the theater, a bloodied Jemma was tucked in front of him as a shield. His arm was around her shoulders, his hand clamped around her neck tightly, so high up that he was forcing her head to turn upwards a bit. She held onto his arm to steady herself and to try and pry his grip free as she gasped for air whenever he adjusted his grip on her neck. He had a gun in his hand and was alternating between aiming it at Daisy and aiming it at the side of Jemma’s protruding stomach every time Daisy tried to advance on him. He threw his head back and laughed. “You still don’t get it, do you?” He asked, tone incredulous.

Ward looked at Jemma. “She never was a bright one, but I guess they don’t really need brains to be decent in bed, do they?” He sneered.

Jemma glared at him. She wanted to tear his eyes from their sockets and shove them down his throat until he choked on them. All she could do was try to struggle against his grip and try to keep her eyes on Daisy in an attempt to stay as calm as possible.

“You’ve got your army! You don’t need my family!” Daisy advanced a step when Ward wasn’t looking.

Ward snickered. “You know, Skye, you’re right about that,” He grinned and aimed the gun at her. “I don’t need them,” He said. “But it sure will be fun taking them from you,” He flashed her a wicked grin. He pulled the hammer of the gun back but wasn’t paying attention to Jemma at that point, his focus was on Daisy. Jemma had swiped his bowie knife from its sheath at the hip of his belt with her hands which had been taped together. She had done it one of the times he had adjusted his grip on her and, thankfully, he had assumed the movement was just Jemma shuffling against him. She swung it with as much force as she could into his side, burying it to the hilt just as he pulled the trigger on the gun.

Everything happened all at once but seemingly in slow motion for Daisy. The gun went off just after Jemma had stabbed Ward. The headshot he had lined up for Daisy turned into a shot in the top of her left shoulder that spun her around and knocked her on her ass. As the gun fell from Ward’s hand, his grip on Jemma’s neck released. In the next moment, doubled over in pain, he had grabbed her by the back of the neck. She managed to land a kick to his knee that nearly snapped it but he regained his balance and hoisted her off her feet with one arm, throwing her as far forward as he could in his injured state.

“JEM!” Her name came screaming off of Daisy’s tongue as she had already been racing to her feet and down the center aisle of the theater toward the stage. She stumbled and fell when another wild gunshot from Ward grazed her hip, throwing her hands out as Jemma went crashing eight feet from the stage into the orchestra pit below. Daisy barely had time to throw her hands out to try and stop Jemma’s fall but she knew she hadn’t done it in time. Ward scrambled to line up another shot and Daisy threw her hands out again, this time she sent Ward flying and crashing into lighting equipment on the stage, some of which came crashing down on him. Daisy was too busy scrambling toward the orchestra pit at lighting speed as her shoulder wound bled down her arm.

“Jem!” She shouted as she waded through the chairs and music stands, tossing them aside with careless force in her haste. She was on her knees next to Jemma, pulling her into her lap and frantically searching for wounds and signs of life. “Jemma!” The fear was thick and palpable as she held Jemma’s torso in her lap, one hand pressing into a gash on the side of her head, the other pressed against Jemma’s stomach, waiting for one of the telltale thumps from the baby “Jem! Jemma! No, no, no, don’t do this to me, open your eyes,” She pled.

Jemma shifted just as Daisy heard movement on the stage. Daisy turned her head to look that way but Ward wasn’t coming for them. He was running away, back, she supposed for the warehouse and his army of clones. “Go,” Jemma’s scratchy voice brought Daisy back to the moment. She stared down at Jemma through the tears in her eyes.

“Jem!” She gasped. “We have to...we have to get you out of here, c’mon,” She started to move to pull Jemma up but Jemma’s hands came up and stopped her. Jemma’s eyes were half lidded. Aside from the gush of blood on her forehead, her face was pale.

“I saw the plans,” Jemma murmured. “Have to stop him,” She said.

“Jem, there’ll be time to-,”

“No!” Jemma snapped, gripping Daisy’s arms tightly. “Y-you have to -,” She let out a groan of pain and doubled toward her stomach.

Daisy was absolutely panicked. She had Jemma and the baby to get out of here, they were both possibly injured, not just Jemma. “Jem, I…”

“If he sets it off - it goes into the drinking water,” She looked at Daisy. “Then he does it everywhere -- it’s us, or the world,” She said urgently. “ _Go_!” She ordered. “I can...I can get to May.” She insisted, starting to move to sit up.

“Jemma, you can’t-,” Daisy moved to pulled Jemma to her feet, grunting as she looped Jemma’s arm around her shoulders and ignored the pain in her arm as it bled. She wrapped her arm around Jemma’s back.

“Daisy!”

“I’m not leaving you!” Daisy replied. The back doors of the theater burst open, producing Mack and May. The look on Daisy’s face alone sent them both sprinting down the aisle one after each other.

“GO!” Jemma let go of Daisy and May caught her.

“Jem-,”

“You can’t let him get away!” Jemma ordered. “Go! Both of you!” She nodded to Mack and then looked at Daisy, tears in her eyes. “I love you,” She murmured as May supported her weight.

Daisy hesitated. Jemma doubled over in pain as May walked her quickly up the aisle and wrapped a protective arm around her stomach. Daisy’s hands suddenly shook with rage. Ward had tried to kill her wife and her baby. Who knows what kind of testing he was going to do on whatever samples they had taken from Jemma and the baby. He was planning on unleashing a combination of potent water laced with not only terrigen crystals but with a hybrid made of the crystals and the centipede serum. Whoever it didn’t kill would be turned into an inhuman super soldier to be recruited by Hydra - lather, rinse, repeat in the next city and the next and the next. They had used babies with inhuman DNA to create an army of clones that would emerge as the initial fully functioning wave of super soldiers, Ward’s personal army of gifted soldiers to brainwash into protecting him and doing his bidding.

Daisy’s face darkened as she turned and ran in the only other direction Ward could have gone. Mack was hot on her heels at first but got stalled by a group of guards. He told Daisy to go on without him. She found Ward heading for a specially equipped helicopter on a helipad on the roof. With ease she had sent a shockwave zooming for the helicopter’s tail, sending it on an uncontrollable spin. Ward leapt from it just as it was crashing over the edge of the building, blades off balance, exploding into shattering splinters as it crashed down the side of the building. There was a laugh in his throat and a smile on his face as Ward pulled himself up onto the roof before daisy reached him and launched himself at her.

The fight that ensued was more than epic. They trade blows; weapons came and went for both of them. They tumbled down flights of stairs, through floors, chasing and wailing on each other. Daisy ignored all of his taunts. She had one goal and one goal only - kill Ward. Once that was complete they could blow the warehouse and everything in all of its sub-levels. She wasn’t sure how long the fight took but eventually she had tackled Ward right out of a second story office window, they landed on the roof of the rain guard at the front of the building and fell from there onto the pavement, both throwing blows to the other’s open wounds, grunting and shouting in pain, they fought. Daisy’s rage only surged as Ward goaded her about Jemma and the baby. Ward’s irritation grew the more he realized she seemed to grow exponentially unstoppable with each taunt he threw at her about Jemma and the baby.

She caught him with a roundhouse kick and then stomped his knee hard enough to send it snapping in the wrong direction. She was on top of him in seconds, swinging over and over again at his face, knocking the back of his head into the ground as her knuckles split and each punch further mangled her hand. Suddenly he started to laugh hysterically and just as she was reeling back again, he heaved her over his head and into the fountain out front of the building. Daisy’s head bounced off the marble pillar at the fountain’s center and before she could wearily pull herself to her feet, Ward was on top of her, holding her head under the water. With no other options to fight back, Daisy turned her hands down and sent shockwaves out to throw them up and out of the water. They landed with a heavy splashing wave into another part of the fountain. Daisy pulled a knife from her boot and as Ward tackled her once more, she swung her hand, fist around the knife and buried it into his throat as deep as she could force it. The wound startled Ward into stillness. With a carnal shriek of animalistic rage, Daisy pulled the knife down, tearing every bit of Ward’s throat she could with the weapon, his arteries and veins, his esophagus, vocal cords - it didn’t matter, she tore a gaping hole across it until the knife caught in his clavicle and she dropped it. Then the dug her bare hands in and ripped whatever was left out. Ward bled out in seconds, eyes wide in surprise and nothing but gurgles escaping as his blood filled the fountain around Daisy.

When it was done, she left Ward’s body, but only after making sure that there was simply no way he could possibly be left alive. His wide, dead eyes stared up from under the ghastly colored water in the fountain. Shock had set in as she blindly trudged, covered in both her blood and Ward’s. She didn’t know where she was going. Her mind struggled to come into focus. Jemma. Carter. She needed to find them. She needed to find her family. Her limbs were stiff. She had lost a lot of blood. She staggered as she walked but she never stopped.

“Daisy!” Coulson’s voice sounded distant but he was only feet away from her, running directly at her. She saw his face come into view in her blurry vision seconds before the world began to spin around her and suddenly there was darkness.

\----

Daisy had no idea how much time had passed since she had passed out but when she awoke, she was back in the base, in the medical wing. She sat up immediately and had forced her feet to the ground before the dizziness swept over her. She was in a near pair of jeans and a black tank top, with shoes tied to her feet. Her shoulder throbbed and her head spun.

“Whoa, Tremors, easy there,” Mack’s voice tried to steady her as much as his hands. He gently eased her to sit back on down on the bed.

“Jemma,” Daisy said immediately as she cringed. She had no care for her own physical assessment. She needed to get to Jemma and the baby.

“She’s here too,” This voice was Coulson’s.

Daisy’s eyes popped back open immediately. She knew right away something was wrong. Pushing Mack’s hands away and ignoring the massive jolt of pain in her shoulder, she pushed to her feet and looked Coulson in the eyes. “Where is she? What about -- are they okay??” There was desperation deeply imbedded in her eyes, laced throughout her voice and carved into the lines of her face that caused Coulson pain, tensed his muscles and made him turn his eyes away.

“Daisy,” Coulson started to say.

Daisy’s eyes welled but she ground her jaw together tight and forced them to remain at bay. “Where are they?” She demanded, she put her hands forcefully on Coulson’s chest. “Tell me!” She ordered, advancing on him.

Coulson’s eyes welled over. He couldn’t help it. This was his team too. They were his family. It was a mindset that he and Daisy shared equally of the team. What happened to hurt them hurt him too. Daisy could feel her heart jamming into her throat as Coulson averted his eyes.

“Coulson,” Daisy’s voice shook. She needed to know. Coulson knew that. He needed to tell her. He knew that too.

“Simmons is going to be okay,” Coulson told her. Daisy stared at him, holding her breath, her eyes searching his for an answer on the baby other than what his statement told her. Coulson swallowed against the lump in his throat. “There were complications from the fall,” He reached for her uninjured shoulder to put his hand on it. “Daisy, I’m so sorry, we...we did everything that we-,”

Daisy felt the air go out of her as she released the breath she had been holding. Her legs wobbled under her and the only thing that kept her from collapsing to the floor had been Mack’s arm around her waist. She struggled to keep control of her brain, to keep her emotions stoic and at bay, forced away from the surface. The baby...their son...Carter...was gone. Just like that, after all the things they had done to make sure he was healthy and safe. Daisy’s hands trembled. Her mouth hung slightly agape. Her eyes welled until she couldn’t see but didn’t spill over. The world dulled. Sounds were muffled in her ears.

“Daisy,” Coulson said her name, she wasn’t sure how many times. He wanted to take her in his arms and let her cry, to comfort her. Daisy put her hand up on his chest to stop him, to keep him at bay with the rest of the swell of emotions that wanted to spew forth. She took it on the chin, the way she took everything, saving the pain for herself, to let it out when she was alone.

“I…” Her voice shook. “I want to see him.”

Coulson gave Daisy a small nod. He took Mack’s place at her side and helped her out of the room and down toward the small morgue area of the medical wing. She pulled away from Coulson when they made it through the threshold. In the middle of the room was a long metal table. On it was a blue blanket, much too small for an adult sized human, on the middle of the table. Sitting in the corner was May, stoically holding vigil over the lost child. She rose to her feet when Daisy and Coulson arrived, but made no move to try and reach for Daisy, only gave a solemn nod. Her own eyes seemed to well, or maybe Daisy imagined it because in the next moment, May was stepping over to Coulson to pull him away from Daisy, somehow aware that this was something Daisy needed to do and that she needed to do it on her own.

For a long time, Daisy stood next to the table staring down at the small folded blanket and the smaller shape underneath it. She breathed in shallow heaves. Her heart labored to continue pumping. She wanted nothing more right in that moment than to meld into the floor and simply cease to be. With a trembling hand, she reached out and carefully peeled back the blanket. Her eyes followed the blanket until it was set on an empty spot at the foot of the table. Her heart jammed again into her throat as her eyes landed on the tangible form of her son. Their son. Thirty-one weeks and two days in and his life was gone, extinguished before it had even begun. There would be no more swift little kicks to Jemma’s stomach, acknowledging that he knew she was there, or replying to her little cooed or sung comments to him. There would be no labor, no baby cries, no waking up in the middle of the night for feeding or changing. Carter would not grow up. Carter would remain this image for her, forever cemented in her mind as her failure to protect the them, a mangled, pale, blue blob of flesh and bone that had been grown from the two of them, what was supposed to be their future, the hope of all the might have been.

Daisy’s hands gripped the edge of the table. She hung her head a moment but couldn’t force her eyes closed. She leaned over close, reached out to touch him. She needed to feel that he had been here. Her fingers traced carefully over his forehead, along the top of his bald head and the back of it. She leaned closer and kissed his forehead gently as her fingers traced the orbit of his closed eyelid and the bulb of his cheek. The tears had finally begun to fall, but Daisy made no sound other than her shallow breaths until she whispered, “I failed you,” to her dead son. Her finger trailed along his tiny arm to his even tinier hand, little fingers balled into a tight fist. “I’m sorry,” Her voice broke as she said it. Her forehead leaned into the table and a sob finally escaped her. Coulson stepped towards her, but May gripped onto his bicep and shook her head.

It wasn’t until nearly twenty minutes later, still sniffling, tears still cascading unrestrained down her cheeks, when Daisy very carefully pulled the blanket and covered up her son’s frail, lifeless body, that May released Coulson’s arm. He surged forward toward Daisy. She stopped him, again. This time she had put her hand on his bicep. He had frozen, waiting, arms halfway out with the intention of hugging her but she kept him at a distance.

“Does Jemma know?” She asked. Her bloodshot, tear filled eyes finally lifted to his.

Coulson shook his head. “She hasn’t woken up yet,” He whispered.

Daisy licked her lips and sniffled. She nodded. “Take me to her.” It wasn’t a question, just an order. She let go of Coulson’s arm. He turned and glanced at May. She gave him a solitary nod and walked back to her chair to resume her stoic vigil. It unnerved her to see Daisy in the state of disrepair she was in. She had expected more of a fight, more sobbing; more of a need to reach for the others for solace and support. It was uncharacteristic for Daisy not to need the others. This was new territory for all of them. It brought back old memories for May, though. Bahrain.

Coulson turned and led the way out of the room. Daisy was silent on the long walk next to him. When they came to Jemma’s room, Fitz, Bobbi and Lance were inside. Bobbi had bandages strewn in various places. She looked like she would collapse at any moment. Hunter was hovering close to her, waiting to whisk her off for a hospital bed. Fitz sat in a chair next to Jemma’s bed, bent forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands pressed together and his face cradled in them as he occasionally looked over the monitors hooked up to Jemma.

Jemma was asleep in the bed. Her head had been stitched and bandaged. Coulson stood outside the room, peering in through the window with Daisy as he explained Jemma’s injuries. She had started hemorrhaging while May was helping her to safety and she hadn’t stopped. They had brought her into surgery to get the baby out, but the injuries sustained in the fight and the fall had been too much for the baby to survive. When they still couldn’t stop the bleeding for Jemma on top of that, they had had to take some more drastic measures that had included giving Jemma a hysterectomy. She had come out of surgery two hours before and had yet to wake up. She had needed a blood transfusion as well from all the blood she had lost. Daisy had been in the medical wing for almost three hours. They had removed the bullet from her shoulder and repaired what they could but she might need another surgery, but had been told the assessment for that could wait for now. She knew she had other injuries but at the moment, she could feel none of them over the pain in her chest that seemed to just be radiating through her entire being.

Daisy entered the room and Bobbi, Lance and Fitz all seemed to sense that it wasn’t the time to try and comfort her, no matter how much they wanted to share in her grief. With squeezes to her good shoulder, they listened to Coulson as he asked them to clear the room. Coulson shut the door behind him on the way out. Daisy sat down on the edge of the bed, facing Jemma and taking stock of every inch of her wife. They each were covered in dark purple and red welts, in stitches and scabs.

Her eyes welled again but she willed them not to spill over as she clenched her jaw. She wiped her cheeks clean and reached for Jemma’s hand, holding it in both of hers. She waited, unmoving, for Jemma to wake. Daisy wasn’t sure how long it was, but by the time Jemma started to stir, her muscles were stiff and ached for rest or for a massive dose of painkillers. Daisy wanted none of either. She deserved to feel the ferocity of this unrivaled, endless pain. She shifted slightly and reached a hand free to comb some of Jemma’s hair from her face.

Jemma’s face contorted and she let out a soft groan of pain. Daisy leaned over and kissed her forehead. Jemma’s brow furrowed and her eyes cracked. When Daisy pulled back she didn’t move far. Jemma’s hand pulled free of Daisy’s and moved to Daisy’s cheek. “You’re here…” She whispered hoarsely.

Daisy nodded. “I’m here.”

“Save the world again?” Jemma’s jest came out in a groggy tone. She hadn’t seemed to register the pain etched deep into the lines of Daisy’s face, in her eyes, in the very fiber of her being, just yet.

Daisy’s only solace in this ordeal was that Jemma was alive. Jemma didn’t know that Carter hadn’t made it yet though and Daisy knew that, after everything they had been through to get to where they had been, this was going to be more than a crushing blow for Jemma. It was more than a crushing blow for Daisy and the only thing holding her together was the knowledge that Jemma was going to need her – that she was going to need her to be the strong one through this, so it was the burden that Daisy would shoulder for her, for them. She nodded. “Took care of Ward,” She confirmed.

Jemma closed her eyes again momentarily and let out a shaky sigh. “Good,” she murmured as a chill shook through her.

Daisy leaned down and gently kissed her forehead again. “Jem, I love you,” She tried to keep her voice steady as she said it.

“I’m okay,” Jemma murmured, trying to sound reassuring. She opened her eyes as she moved her fingers gingerly against the side of Daisy’s face, trying to be careful of the welts and cuts she saw there.

Daisy saw it; the exact moment that Jemma’s anesthesia and trauma addled brain registered that there was no movement in her belly; no kicks, no punches, no drumming, and no swimming. Her eyelids jumped open all the way and she immediately tried to sit up. Daisy had been leaning over her and it obscured her stomach and prevented her from bolting upright.

“Jem,” Daisy’s voice was calm, pained. She took a steadying breath as her hands came to rest on Jemma’s arms just below her shoulders.

Jemma struggled against Daisy’s grip and tried to sit up again. The monitors off to the side of Jemma’s bed began to erupt in furious flurries of erratic rhythms. Alarms started to ring from them but no nurses or doctors rushed in. They were being held at bay by Coulson and the others out in the hallway. “Baby-,” Jemma gasped, her hands tore at the blanket covering her abdomen and her feet kicked it away, eyes wide as she spotted the missing swollen bump from her stomach. Her hands immediately went to it, clutching against the reality that was suddenly in front of her.

“Jemma,” Daisy’s voice was steady but the unbridled anguish matched her eyes as she stared at Jemma. The sound of the way Daisy said her name froze Jemma’s movements. Daisy watched as what was left of her wife ceased and disappeared behind wide pupils and a well of tears that immediately began to cascade down her cheeks in fat streaks of hot saline.

“No,” Jemma breathed with a forceful shake of her head. It couldn’t be true. She had been alright! They had been fine! He had to be okay! “No, no, no, no, he was - Daisy, where is he? He c-can’t...he, no, please…” Sobs cut into Jemma’s words as she gripped at Daisy’s arms and shirt. There was desperation in Jemma’s eyes that Daisy had never seen before and she was sure it would remain as a haunting reminder, forever burnt into the back of her brain like the image of Carter’s frail body lying lifeless on the metal table in the morgue.

Daisy wanted nothing more than to erase this day from existence, to assure Jemma that everything was okay – to tell her that Carter had made it and that he was safe and tucked away in the nursery waiting for her.

Her hands came up to cup each side of Jemma’s face as she braced herself for what she had to tell her wife. “He’s gone, Jem,” She could scarcely force the words out of her mouth as she felt a spike of bile rise in her own throat at having to say them. This was her fault. She’d let them be led into the trap. She’d been too late to save them from the fall. She had gone after Ward rather than taking Jemma and the baby to safety. 

Daisy had never heard the likes of the wail of unadulterated anguish that escaped from Jemma as she went limp in Daisy’s arms, falling forward against her chest. Daisy wrapped her up tightly in her arms and held on, ignoring the pain from her own injuries. She rocked with Jemma and stroked her hair and back. She cried along with her wife for nearly an hour. Coulson kept the doctors from the room until Jemma had cried herself to sleep, but they had all heard the tormented wails through the halls. They had all been standing, waiting, holding vigil in the hallway outside of Jemma’s room; Coulson, Bobbi, Fitz, Hunter, Mack. May was the only one who had remained in the morgue, but even at that distance, she had heard Jemma’s unbridled cries and pleas.

The cycle lasted for days. Wake, wail and sob back into exhaustion. Daisy hardly slept. She only ate the barest minimum of food that would keep her going for Jemma and only when May forced her to do so under threat of a feeding tube. The cycle went on for almost five days, until Jemma was a shell of the person she had once been. Even when she had come back through the portal, she had been Jemma, just a shell shocked Jemma. This was a wholly different ball game. This was not Jemma. This was a zombie minus the cannibalism Jemma. She went through the motions Daisy directed her through, let Daisy draw baths for her, let Daisy comb and dry her hair, help her into her clothes or pajamas, drank down spoonfuls of broth Daisy fed her or nibbled on crackers. There was a blank stare in her eyes that unnerved Daisy to her core almost as much as the way Jemma sat holding onto her stomach and staring off into nothing for hours at a time. There were times she would enter their bunk only to find Jemma lying on the floor, the side of her face pressed into the linoleum flooring, staring off into nothing and silently crying as if she expected the ground to swallow her whole.

Jemma’s shell struggled to remember how to live. Daisy’s shell of existence struggled to find some way to snap Jemma out of it, to bring her back. She couldn’t lose Jemma too. Jemma was all she had. She had to fight. She had to bring Jemma back.

\-----

**_2018 --- February 25th_ **

Daisy carried a bag of Chinese takeout towards her and Jemma’s bunk area. She dropped the bag near the door and rushed into the room when she heard great clatters of sound bashing around the room. Inside, a whirlwind of Jemma Simmons moved about the room, upending things, throwing some into what looked like a trash pile, while dropping others into hastily folded boxes.

“Jemma,” Daisy said her name, stepping closer.

“We don’t need this. We never use it, it’s going in the trash pile,” Jemma tossed some notebooks and pads into the so-called ‘trash’ pile. The trash pile was the baby’s crib and it was piled with all the things they had acquired in preparation for Carter’s birth - clothes, toys, books, a mobile that Daisy had handmade with Fitz’s help made up of specific chemical formula compounds. She thought it might have been cheesy, but when she had originally presented it to Jemma, it had made her burst into tears before she had tackled Daisy and kissed her senseless for a good twenty minutes before she had begged her to go on a pie run. Daisy felt the shatter in the remaining fractures of her heart as she watched Jemma unceremoniously toss the mobile at the pile.

“Jem,” Daisy breathed her name, stepping further into the room. Daisy’s grief had been relegated to only those times when she was truly alone – in the shower by herself when Jemma was in the lab with Fitz, slowly getting back to work, late nights when she wandered to the roof of the base, unable to sleep and needing to be alone in the open air. She let the others attempt to comfort her, accepting their hugs, their gentle squeezes to her shoulder, their attempts to bring her back into the fold of the world surrounding her. She let them keep her here, in the present, alive so that she could work on bringing Jemma back to all of them.

The sound of Daisy’s voice seemed to unnerve Jemma right then. She threw the items in her arms down. “I can’t do this!” She burst into frustrated tears.

In the last week or so, parts of Jemma that Daisy thought had been lost for good, had started to return. She had started to bring herself to the lab, to distract herself with work and Daisy had slowly started to bring her back to herself with like trips off the base for dinners out or just to get air or coffee – any excuse would do. This outburst was terrifying but, at the same time, it showed some emotions instead of the shell of Jemma that Daisy had been trying to break for weeks. “Okay,” Daisy nodded. “Jem, you don’t...you don’t have to. C’mere, it’s alright,” She reached for Jemma’s shaking shoulder and suddenly Jemma collapsed into her chest. Daisy wrapped her arms around her wife and held her close, pulling her in tight. She stroked her hair and kissed the side of her head. “I love you,” she repeated over and over again.

When Jemma had calmed down from the tears, she was reduced to shaky exhales against Daisy’s collarbone. “I can’t…” she murmured, voice breaking. “I can’t do this anymore,” She said.

“Jem, I love you,” Daisy repeated. “What can I do?” She echoed what she had asked Jemma years ago, after the portal. “Anything, just name it.” She begged, desperate to take Jemma’s pain away by any means necessary, to find a way to feel the connection between them that had been lost in the aftermath of everything.

“I-I want to leave here,” Jemma whispered into the crook of her neck. “I can’t be here...I...I can’t do this,” She sniffled.

“Here...the base?” Daisy asked. Jemma nodded. Daisy frowned but nodded and rubbed Jemma’s back gently. “Okay.” she assured. “We’ll move off the base. Anywhere you want to. We’ll start looking tomorrow, okay?” She asked. Jemma seemed to calm down now that she had Daisy’s approval of the idea. She nodded against her shoulder. “Jem, I love you,” Daisy couldn’t seem to say it enough. Jemma hadn’t returned the sentiment since she had woken up in the hospital after they had lost the baby. She wrapped her arms tightly around Daisy and held on fiercely, clutching at handfuls of her shirt. Daisy knew Jemma loved her, but she was desperate to hear it in the wake of her failure to protect them even though there was a growing part of her that felt like she no longer deserved Jemma’s love after what happened.

“Why don’t we pack up a bag and we’ll stay in a hotel for the night?” Daisy asked. She leaned back and took Jemma’s face in her hands. “Would that help? Getting off the base tonight too?” She asked. Jemma sniffled. She nodded and apologized and Daisy leaned over to kiss her forehead. “Jem...I love you. We’re going to make it through this, eventually...I promise.” Jemma nodded and burrowed into Daisy’s collar once more. Daisy held onto her for another a while, letting her calm down before they began to pack up an overnight bag to take with them off the base.

\----  
**_2018 -- March 27th_**

Life felt rushed, in Daisy’s opinion. On their third day camping out at the hotel and spending long hours touring through houses back in the tail end of February, they had found a house that Daisy could tell Jemma wanted. A small spark of hope had begun to burn in Daisy’s chest when she realized the house, a mid-sized two-story affair tucked away in a back suburb between Arlington and Alexandria, Virginia. It had three bedrooms, a combined kitchen a large combined kitchen and dining room, two bathrooms, and a large yard. It was a quiet neighborhood, with space between the neighbors’ houses and various patches of wooded areas surrounding it. It even had a cute little Library/study room. The number of bedrooms, though, that was what had given Daisy hope for the first time in weeks. Daisy had possibly used her computer skills to help urge the closing date along for them in the hopes that moving into the house would give Jemma distraction and comfort and would hopefully start to coax more of the old Jemma back out from the depths.

Daisy had known this would be a long and rocky period, but that hadn’t been a deterrent from her determination to weather it with Jemma. There was no question for Daisy that they were in this together to the end of the line, even as she seemed to feel Jemma pulling away from her increasingly. Daisy had to constantly pep talk herself, to give herself reminders that this storm would pass and they would find their way to rebuilding their lives. It would take time.

They made settlement on the house on the 13th, but they didn’t actually move in until the 27th. Coulson had insisted that they let him secure the house with proper security measures. Fitz, similarly, had insisted that they let him set them up with all kinds of bells and whistles. By the time they had started moving boxes in on the 27th, the house was practically a fortress of security. The roof was rigged with both solar panels that Fitz had tweaked to be sure that they twisted with the angle of the sun as it arched up and over the house during the day and also with an oddly shaped small household wind turbine to accent the solar power. He had rigged all kinds of electronic goodies through the house for them. Bobbi, Hunter and Mack had supplied them with two large Rubbermaid tubs, one filled with all manner of cleaning supplies for the new house and the other filled with items they might need but hadn’t though about like paper towel, toilet paper, plasticware, paper plates and cups to use while they were unpacking their things. It had a folder full of local takeout menus, bath towels, snacks and such.

During the morning the team helped them make quick work of moving the boxes of stuff they had and in the early afternoon, Daisy had ordered them pizza to sit out in the backyard with some beer as a lunchtime reward before they’d seen the team off. Daisy shut the door behind them and flipped the deadbolt lock out of reflexive habit. She let out a sigh as she headed for the living room to start organizing which boxes in there needed to go into other rooms.

After lugging a stray box of heavy books into the library, Daisy turned around to find Jemma had snuck up on her and was standing leaning in the doorway of the library with her arms crossed. Daisy jumped slightly and then let out a small chuckle. “You scared me,” she said with a smile as she took a few tentative steps toward her. “Alright?” she asked.

Jemma seemed to hesitate a moment. She nodded and shuffled on her feet, dropping her hands to fidget together. She shuffled a step or two closer and Daisy took it as a green light to approach her. She slipped an arm around the curve of Jemma’s hip and pulled her closer.

“What’s up?” Daisy asked, prodding to let Jemma know she could tell her whatever it was that might be bugging her. Jemma dropped her eyes down as her hands came to rest along Daisy’s arms. Daisy kissed her forehead and sent them on a gentle sway, patiently waiting for Jemma and whatever she wanted to say. 

“I, erm…” Jemma kept her eyes down but leaned in closer to Daisy, who adjusted her grip and just quietly stood there, contently swaying with Jemma in her arms and waiting. “I just wanted to say thank you,” she hazarded a glance up to let her eyes meet Daisy’s for just a moment before they dropped again.

Daisy’s brow furrowed. She started to duck her head to try and catch Jemma’s gaze but then rethought it and angled her head so she could steal a quick kiss. She was surprised when Jemma returned it and wrapped her arms around Daisy’s neck to steal a few of her own. Daisy broke the kiss and left their foreheads touching. “I don’t know why you’re thanking me, buuuut you should go ahead and tell me what I did if it rewards in kisses…” she said with a crooked smile. Jemma’s cheeks actually flushed a moment. Before Daisy could say or do anything in reaction to it, Jemma had wrapped her arms tight around Daisy’s neck and shoulders and pulled her into the tightest hug she could manage.

Daisy felt a bit of alarm at the fierce hug, but she moved her arms and wrapped them tight around Jemma’s middle. She turned and dropped a kiss to the side of Jemma’s head and indulged a moment in burying her nose into the crook of Jemma’s neck just next to the nape of it. She inhaled a deep breath and let out a sigh as her hands made their usual routes along her back while Jemma held onto her for dear life as if she were some form of anchor. “Jem?” asked after a few moments of just holding onto her.

“Hmm?” Jemma replied, tilting her head to lean it against the side of Daisy’s.

“Whatever it is, I’ve got you,” Daisy whispered. “You know I love you, right?”

Jemma was silent so long, Daisy wondered if she had ruined whatever moment was happening between them but she refused to be the first to let go of the other. She felt Jemma turn her face down into her shoulder where she pressed a kiss. She listened as Jemma sucked in a breath and, just for the briefest of moments, she was sure Jemma was going to tell her that she loved her. Daisy closed her eyes but prepared herself for the disappointment she knew was inevitable right now. Jemma squeezed her arms tighter around Daisy’s neck and kissed her shoulder again. “I know…” she whispered in reply. Jemma knew it was cruel, her inability to say the words. She had no idea why they never came when all she wanted was to say them to Daisy. Worse yet, she had been struggling to move her emotions outside of herself, outside of her grief so that she could actually do anything to show Daisy that she loved her and that she was trying to find her way back. 

“Good,” Daisy managed not to let her shoulders sink in defeat when the words didn’t come. She wasn’t dense enough to think that Jemma _didn’t_ love her, but she couldn’t help the way this felt like a punishment for her failure. Daisy had kept those thoughts strictly to herself. She kissed the side of Jemma’s neck and indulged in another inhale, letting Jemma’s scent fill her senses. She would have been perfectly content to stand there and hold onto Jemma until their legs gave out. Eventually Jemma gave her a final squeeze and broke away so they could get back to unpacking. She kissed Daisy’s cheek quickly and Daisy watched her go before she turned back to the boxes in the library. She decided she wasn’t opening the can of worms that loading the bookshelves would lead to since she knew Jemma had a particular system for arranging them that she would never be able to replicate. So Daisy headed for the kitchen. Pots and pans, she could handle that, especially since their cooking sets were all brand new, bought for the house. 

\----  
**_2018 -- April 10th_**

Daisy was sitting at the dining room table. She had taken the day off from work specifically to spend the day with Jemma. Jemma, however, had been called into work for some lab emergency or other and has rushed to leave the house and get to the base, promising that she would be home in time for their planned dinner. Daisy had taken Jemma leaving to go into work in stride. She had gone about a few chores around the house before she had started on dinner. The kitchen had become a bit of a disaster area while she had been cooking, making a specific set of recipes she had looked up just for their anniversary dinner. It was as close to the meal they had had in Vegas before Daisy had turned to Jemma and blurted out that they should get married. Daisy had wanted to spend the day relaxing with Jemma, not having to worry about work, simply together until they made dinner and maybe relaxed in the tub afterward. 

Six O’clock came and Daisy had set the dining room table with a fancy table cloth, had plated up both of their meals and covered them in foil to keep them warm. She had done the cheesy stereotype of setting up a couple of candles and pouring them each a glass of wine. Six O’clock went and seven o’clock came. Daisy drank both of their glasses of wine. Seven-thirty came and the only thing that kept Daisy from panicking was a text from Bobbi that asked what had happened to the anniversary dinner plans since Simmons was in the lab. Daisy hadn’t responded, though a number of dark, sarcastic thoughts of what she could reply had run through her mind. Seven-thirty went and eight o’clock came. Daisy was finished the bottle of wine and the candles had burnt out already. She sat at the table, her own plate of food uncovered and half-heartedly picked at. She watched the rain from the window and thought about the road her life had taken. 

Daisy fought to keep them together, to keep them going. She never stopped to ask herself why she was still fighting when it was clear that Jemma couldn’t get past blaming her for what happened to Carter. Daisy hadn’t gotten past the guilt either, but she had forced it and the rest of her grief and pain aside because she had known that it was what Jemma needed of her. It was an unsustainable game plan and today…today only brought her proof of this. She couldn’t live her life fearing losing Jemma to the grief because she had already lost Jemma to it, she had just been too blind to see that before. Daisy spent nights lying awake in bed with Jemma curled up right in her arms while feeling a vast chasm growing wider between them. Their experience was shared. Daisy was not immune to the loss that they had sustained. Their future had been ripped away from both of them and Daisy hadn’t allowed herself to grieve through the loss because the assumption had been that she had dealt with familial loss already, so obviously she should have been better equipped to handle it. 

By the time Jemma’s car pulled into the driveway and she dashed from it to the house, the clock read 8:49pm. “Daisy?” Jemma’s voice carried through the house from the front door where she shook off her coat and hung it in the hall closet. She stepped out of her boots. “I’m home!” She said, her voice growing louder as she neared the dining room. “I’m sorry I’m so late! You’ll never guess what came into the lab!” She reached Daisy, dropped a chaste kiss to the top of her head and sat down in the seat adjacent to Daisy’s around the corner of the table. There was a smile on Jemma’s face as she launched into a science diatribe that Daisy understood none of and, for a moment, Daisy just stared at the smile in wonder. How long had it been since she had witnessed that on Jemma’s face? 

The tear that streaked down Daisy’s cheek called an end to Jemma’s science ramble – something that Daisy had once found so endearing about her, in that moment, filled Daisy with anger – and she fixed Daisy with a worried expression. “Daisy?” she reached for Daisy’s cheek and wiped the tear away with her thumb. “What is it?” She asked. 

Daisy swallowed back against the lump of emotion welled in her throat. “Jemma...do you love me?” She asked before she could think better of the question. 

Jemma froze in her spot, the question had gripped her heart and squeezed. Her mouth hung open as she tried to sputter a reply. Daisy turned her face down as more tears slipped down her cheeks and fell into her lap. She hung her head and gave a nod of defeat when Jemma couldn’t seem to answer her question. The silence was her answer, right? Daisy was drunk enough to believe so. She pushed her chair back and moved to stand. Jemma reached for her forearm. 

“Happy anniversary, Jem,” Daisy leaned over and kissed Jemma’s cheek and then turned, doing her best to keep her balance steady as she walked around the dining room chair and headed for the stairs. She kept a hand on the wall and the other on the railing as she climbed the stairs. She blinked away the tears in her eyes as she went, moving into the master bedroom, where she headed for the bureau and began changing from her day clothes into her pajamas robotically. 

It took a delayed moment, but Jemma followed her. Daisy was just pulling her sweatshirt on over her head after tugging on pajama pants, when Jemma rushed into the room. There was panic in her eyes and Daisy felt pained at having caused it after Jemma had been smiling for once. “Of course I do - you know I do, how...how could you ask me that?” Jemma demanded. 

Daisy turned to face her. “Of course you do, what?” She asked. 

Jemma’s brow furrowed. “Daisy...I’m sorry about dinner. I didn’t mean to get sidetracked. I should have called you,” she stepped closer to Daisy and reached out to run her hands down from Daisy’s shoulders to her elbows. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise. I’m so sorry, you know my mind is...is still trying to get back to-,” 

“Say it,” Daisy replied. It wasn’t a demand. It was a plea. Couldn’t Jemma see that she needed this? She needed to hear it. She needed to know. She needed a single reassurance that she hadn’t really lost Jemma, that this was temporary and it wasn’t as permanent as it felt , that Jemma was there and fighting with her, fighting _for_ her. 

“What?” Jemma asked. 

“Please,” Daisy’s voice was barely a whisper, a ghost of itself as she looked down into Jemma’s eyes. “Tell me,” Her vision blurred as her eyes filled again. 

“Daisy-,” 

“I know I don’t deserve it,” Daisy cut Jemma off. A sob cut into her voice and she swayed on her feet as her head swam with self-deprecating assurances that she deserved Jemma’s punishment, that losing Carter was unacceptable and it was her fault that she had made this bed and it was the one she was going to have to lie in. Her shoulders shook suddenly and her knees gave out. Before Jemma could even reach to catch her, Daisy was on her knees in front of her, her face pressed into Jemma’s hip and her arms wrapped around her legs. “I’m sorry,” She sobbed, unable to stop herself right then. “Jem, I’m sorry.” Words began to tumble out between the sobs that wracked through her. “I shouldn’t have left you...I know it’s my fault.” she cried. “I just need to hear it once!” She begged. Jemma was in such shock from the sudden breakdown that she was left just staring down at Daisy, one of her hands holding the back of Daisy’s head and the other pressed to her shoulder. Jemma’s voice was strangled in her vocal chords as she watched Daisy unravel in seconds before her. 

“D-Daisy-,” 

“P-Please,” Daisy’s sobs shook her and Jemma nearly stumbled over multiple times as she tried to hold onto her. “Just this once, I just...I can handle...I can handle the punishment - it was my fault. I was too late. I know. I can’t...I can’t fix it...I just, I...I n-need to know…” 

It took great effort as her own eyes welled with tears but Jemma gripped onto the sides of Daisy’s face and sunk to the floor in front of her. “Daisy,” She said her name over and over, “Shhhh, Daisy...no-,” She tried to calm Daisy down to no avail. She couldn’t even see Daisy eyes for all the tears pouring from them. Daisy had always been her solid ground. It unraveled all the things Jemma had bound in herself over the last few months, had pushed away. “It’s not...It wasn’t...Daisy, no,” she shook her head and pulled Daisy in, cradling her the back of her head as she Daisy’s face buried into her neck and shoulder. Jemma knew at once the mistake she had made. She had given in to the abyss that had swallowed her and allowed Daisy to be her crutch without thought to what it was doing to Daisy. A small sob escaped from Jemma as she held onto Daisy as fiercely as Daisy had held onto her in months past. She gently rocked Daisy and stroked her hair, trying to calm her down so she could get the words out that Daisy needed. 

“Please, Jem,” Daisy murmured desperately into her shoulder. “I can’t...I can’t lose you too.” Jemma felt Daisy’s fingers pressed firmly into her back, gripping the material of her shirt in tight, trembling fists. Jemma knew part of this was the tied to the empty wine bottle she had seen on the table before she had followed Daisy up the stairs, but she knew it was long overdue. 

“I’m here,” Jemma promised, chiding and berating herself as she still couldn’t seem to force the words out. She kissed the spot just above Daisy’s ear. She reached for the sides of Daisy’s face again and pulled her back, leaning to look her in the eyes. “Daisy...look at me,” She demanded, her own voice shaking. Daisy’s eyes reluctantly rose to meet Jemma’s and Jemma felt the crush of weight on her heart when she got a good look into them. Jemma had caused this. Her carelessness had brought this burden upon Daisy. “What happened is not your fault,” She spoke as firmly as she could. 

Daisy blinked against her tears. She dropped her eyes guiltily. Jemma tried to force the words out. They were true. They were the truth and Jemma wanted Daisy to hear them. She wanted to give Daisy the reassurance and the care that Daisy had given her but something seemed to stop her. With a crush of urgency, she pulled Daisy to her and leaned in, bringing their mouths crashing together, swallowing another of Daisy’s sobs. 

Jemma wasn’t entirely sure what came over either of them. In the wake of the outburst and sobs, they tore at each other’s layers of clothing. Jemma was in control of the crush of their bodies, the burn of flesh on flesh, of swallowing the sobs and sending moans and pleas in their wake. The fumble and the rush left them collapsed in a heap of breathless, post-cry hiccups and tangled limbs along the hardwood floor when it was over. Daisy’s ear was pressed to Jemma’s chest. Jemma’s fingers were tangled in her hair. She couldn’t bear the silence that had engulfed them in the wake of it all. The wounds that had been ripped open were no closer to being healed. Jemma could feel the stray tears still seeping from Daisy’s eyes and falling against her own skin. 

“Daisy…” Jemma whispered her name after an indeterminable span of time. Daisy couldn’t reply. She merely sniffled and closed her eyes, which send another tear dropping onto Jemma’s chest. Jemma’s breath hitched for a moment. “I love you,” she felt no relief when she finally forced the words out. Jemma still didn’t understand why she found them so hard to say now, when they were still as true as they were the first time she had ever said them to Daisy. Daisy’s shoulders began to shake, her crying jag this time a silent one. Jemma rolled them onto their sides and pulled Daisy in, wrapping her arms around her and their legs together, attempting to wrap herself as fully around Daisy as she could. “I’m sorry,” She murmured over and over as Daisy cried on her shoulder. 

\----  
**_2018 --- June 5th_**

Daisy and Jemma had been fighting for four days. Daisy had slept on the couch after the first night and neither of them had been able to swallow down enough pride to apologize. As a result, they traded passive aggressive jabs whenever their paths crossed. Tonight had been no different. Daisy had made dinner for both of them. It was the best she could do in lieu of apologizing, to make a peace offering of some kind. They had eaten in tense silence at the dining room table, both too afraid to be the one to breach the silence and cause the next round of their fight. 

After the meal, Daisy had loaded the dishwasher and then had started to beat a hasty retreat back toward the living room. She hadn’t been sleeping well at all on the couch. She had never slept well away from Jemma since they had started dating. Adding everything else into the mix just made it worse, which Daisy was sure had influenced some aspects of their fight. Daisy tensed when she heard footsteps to indicate that Jemma had followed her. She stood in the archway as Daisy started to tuck the sheet into the couch to prepare for bed. 

“Are you really going to sleep on the couch again?” Jemma asked from the archway of the living room, her hands on her hips and frustration in her voice. 

Daisy frowned. She nodded. “I think it’s for the best right now,” she frowned. 

“Sure it is!” Jemma snapped. “So you can play martyr and make me feel like shit!” 

Daisy’s brow furrowed as she fixed and irritated glower on Jemma. “Because I’d feel really comfortable sleeping in the same bed as you when you clearly don’t want me there?” She retorted. 

“You’re my wife!” Jemma snapped again. “Of _course_ I want you there!” 

Daisy dropped her gaze and ran a weary hand through her hair. She bit her lip and inhaled a deep breath through her nose. She held her hand up, arm bent at the elbow. “Jemma…” she paused a moment and let her eyes find Jemma’s. “I…” Her shoulders slumped in defeat. “I love you...more than anyone that I’ve ever had come into my life and I,” She watched Jemma’s face carefully and tried to keep her voice steady and her eyes from welling as she spoke, hoping she was doing _something_ to convey to Jemma that she didn’t want to fight with her, that she loved her - that she wasn’t going anywhere but she thought that this arrangement was for the best for right now. “I would cross galaxies to get to you in a heartbeat...I love you.” She said before she gave her head a small shake. “We’re both upset...and we need some space, so...so this what’s best for me right now,” She said. 

Jemma stared at Daisy for a long few moments, caught between wanting to cross the room, throw her arms around Daisy and spend hours professing her undying love for her and wanting to slap her. She couldn’t even remember what had started the fight to begin with now. “Well,” She finally said after having shifted on her feet for a few minutes. She crossed her arms stubbornly. “You’ll know where I am,” She turned on her heel and headed for the stairs to go up to the master bedroom. She tried to force herself not to look back, but a spare glance when she had turned around the stairs and started up them, left her gazing at a defeated Daisy, her shoulders slumped, her head hung low as she wiped a tear off of her cheek. Guilt immediate infiltrated Jemma’s chest and radiated throughout her. What had happened to her? Was she merely a cold hearted wench now? She wasn’t even sure why Daisy was fighting so hard to hold onto her with the way Jemma had been treating her. How was she supposed to find her way back to who she used to be? How could she give Daisy the Jemma she deserved to have back? All this time later and Jemma was still just as lost as she had been in the days right after it had happened. 

\--

In the early hours of the morning, when the sun had just started to turn the world into a vision of varying blue hues, Jemma made her way down the stairs. Daisy was awake on the couch, but her eyes were closed, pretending to sleep so that she wouldn’t have another confrontation with Jemma. It made Jemma’s heart wrench in her chest to know that she had become such a vile monster to the one person who had been her solid footing for so long, through so much. 

Before she could talk herself out of it, with a sniffle, Jemma lifted the covers off of Daisy and climbed onto the couch on top of Daisy. She pressed her ear to Daisy’s chest and listened to the way her heartbeat suddenly began to race, unsure if it was fear or confusion causing the sudden thundering. Her arms snaked around Daisy’s middle in a tight squeezing death grip. 

Daisy inhaled a long breath as she listened to Jemma sniffle again. “Jemma…” she whispered her name, not moving her arms around Jemma just yet, feeling wary. 

“I’m sorry,” Came Jemma’s whispered reply. Daisy opened her mouth to speak but Jemma went on. “I’m so sorry for being so awful to you,” She sniffled again and turned her head to kiss the spot where her ear had just been resting. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Daisy,” she murmured against her chest. Daisy’s arms circled Jemma’s shoulders. Jemma’s voice choked with emotion as she went on. “I don’t want to fight with you. I don’t even know why we’re fighting anymore. I...I can’t seem to stop the...the...I don’t even know what-,” 

“Jemma,” Daisy spoke her name softly. She reached out and combed her fingers gingerly through Jemma’s loose strands of hair. “Shhh...it’s okay…” she frowned. “I’m sorry too,” she said. 

Jemma suddenly picked her head up, turning and loosening her grip so she could looked down at Daisy, fresh tears on her cheek. “It’s not okay,” She shook her head. Daisy brought her hand to cup the side of Jemma’s face and used the pad of her thumb to swipe a tear away. She was about to insist that it was okay, that they would get through it. “I love you,” Jemma blurted it - the first time she had said it again since their anniversary. Daisy exhaled a startled gust of air. Jemma had gotten better at finding ways to show it, to let Daisy know even though she couldn’t say the words, right up until they had started fighting. “I love you. I need you. You are the most important...I can’t…” she cleared her throat and blinked at another well of tears in her eyes. “I don’t want to live my life without you,” She said. “I don’t want to sleep in different rooms from you. I want to get back to who we were and I don’t know how, but...you have to know that I...Daisy I love you.” She insisted. 

Daisy closed her eyes and took in the sound of the words she had needed to badly for so long. She lifted her head and kissed Jemma, turning to roll them onto their sides so she could get a better hold on her to pull her closer. The laid in silence for a long time, occasionally trading kisses, tracing their fingers of each other’s faces and down each other’s backs. Finally, Daisy kissed her forehead. She pulled away, even as Jemma let out a startled sound of protest, and moved to stand. “C’mon, let’s go to bed,” she held her hands out for Jemma. 

Jemma slowly reached for Daisy’s hands and Daisy pulled her to her feet. She grabbed her pillow in one hand and wrapped her arm around Jemma’s waist and led the way up to their bedroom. Once they were curled in bed and wrapped around each other again, Daisy leaned in and brought her lips to Jemma’s for a lingering kiss. “There will never be a day that I do not love you,” She whispered. 

 

\----  
**_2018 --- July 12th_**

Alastair Oscar Simmons - one healthy, bouncing, baby boy was born to Arthur and Alice Simmons on June 30th, 2018. Daisy and Jemma were on a plane on July 11th to head to the UK to meet their nephew. It was nice to see Jemma smiling with her family, but Daisy was dreading meeting the adorable baby Arthur had been unable to stop sending them pictures of. Every picture text or email came with a follow-up apology from him and explanation that he wasn’t trying to gloat. Daisy and Jemma had had to actually get on a Skype call with Arthur to assure him that they were happy for him and Alice and that they couldn’t wait to meet the baby. 

Daisy was delighted to know she had a nephew, of course, and equally relieved that he was perfectly healthy and safe. She was worried about how Jemma was going to take the meeting. She had sobbed when her father had sent a picture to her of Arthur holding the bundled up newborn to announce that he had been born. Jemma had been happy, of course - this was her nephew! But there was an air of sadness around her, that she had been unable to completely hide in her eyes though Daisy could tell she had been practicing the whole week leading up to their flight. 

They had gotten in late on the night of the eleventh and had settled into Jemma’s old room to sleep off their jetlag. It was mid-afternoon now and they were having a late lunch. Arthur and Alice had arrived and have come around the back to meet them in the garden where Daisy and Jemma were seated with the elder Mr. and Mrs. Simmons. There was a smile stretched across Jemma’s face as she leaned over the car seat to coo at her nephew and his adorably pudgy baby cheeks but Daisy could see it, the flicker of pain in her eyes as Alice immediately asked if Jemma wanted to hold the baby. 

Jemma hesitated for a moment but nodded. “I’d love to,” she said, braving the sharp twitch of sadness in her chest. 

Arthur unhooked the belt of the carseat and scooped his son from it with a happy beaming smile on his face. He cradled the baby in his arms and leaned down toward Jemma in her seat. Jemma’s attention was zeroed in on the baby, completely enthralled with him. “Hey big guy,” Arthur said to the baby when he opened his eyes. They were bright hazel orbs, Simmons through and through. Arthur tilted his arms to angle the baby toward both Daisy and Jemma. “These are your aunts Jemma and Daisy,” He said. “We love them.” He grinned and dropped his voice to a mock whisper. “They’re going to spoil you rotten.” chuckles erupted around them, even Daisy let one out and then Arthur was making the baby pass to Jemma and it was Daisy who suddenly couldn’t handle the scene before her. 

Jemma cradled the baby in her arms close to her chest. There was a big smile on her face but her eyes welled against her will. She ignored them and gently rocked the baby. “Hello, sweetheart,” Jemma cooed as the baby’s eyebrows moved, his eyes squinting up at the new face in front of him. 

It was the sight of Jemma rocking and cooing at the baby boy that undid Daisy. She felt the burn in the bridge of her nose as the smile pushed along her lips. Only sadness managed to reach her eyes. This was the scene that was supposed to be theirs, hers and Jemma’s. This was what had been taken from them. Daisy didn’t want to be the person to ruin this moment. They deserved a happy meeting, a break in the everyday struggle they still faced on their uphill climb to recovering from the loss they had sustained. She wanted Jemma to have this moment. 

“He’s perfect,” Jemma murmured as she leaned back in her chair, unable to take her eyes away from her nephew as the others shared anxious glances between themselves. 

“He is,” Daisy managed to say in earnest with a nod and smile. “I need to just use the facilities, I’ll be right back,” she moved to stand and quickly pressed a kiss to the side of Jemma’s head. “Does anyone need anything on my way back?” she asked as she began to beat a retreat inside though she didn’t actually have to use the bathroom. 

Rather than to to the bathroom, Daisy stopped in the kitchen and watched from the window by the sink that showed the backyard. She tried to simply take a few deep breaths, to will herself to stay calm and collected. She was not going to be responsible for ruining this day for the Simmons family. 

Daisy stood, her hands gripped on the counter and her tear-filled eyes watching Jemma as she spoke to the baby with a bright, happy smile, occasionally dipping to kiss his forehead or nudge the little end of Alastair’s nose with hers. The tears came before Daisy could force them back. She hung her head and let her shoulders shake. She could let them out here and then she could collect herself and return outside. 

A hand pressed into her back between her shoulder blade and moved to her shoulder, squeezing gently. Daisy jumped, startled. She turned her head to find Arthur, silently standing at her side and squeezing her shoulder. 

“You’d have made terrific Mums,” Arthur spoke in a gentle tone that disarmed Daisy. She was used to his usual boisterous personality, always happy, always optimistic and enthusiastic. She missed those qualities in Jemma too. 

Daisy turned her head down and angrily wiped at her cheeks. She sniffled and let out a derisive chuckle. “I...am not going to dampen this day,” she insisted, pressing her lips into a tight smile. 

“It’s not fair that he was taken from you,” Arthur persisted. “I wish this didn’t have to hurt either of you,” he said. 

Daisy’s eyes shook with a well of tears and before she could pull away, Arthur had pulled her in and wrapped her up in his embrace. Daisy had no choice but to give in to the well of emotion and Arthur simply stayed with her and held onto her. 

\--

Their lunch had moved into the house when the heat of the day became too much and they had moved inside to be more comfortable in the air conditioning. Alastair was asleep in Jemma’s arms, which had started to hurt long ago after she had fed and burped the baby. Alice and Arthur understood she didn’t want to let him go. They would be here for a short visit and it was going to be an emotion filled one. Everyone had prepared for it in their own way. 

While the others were engaged in a conversation, after Jemma had finally relinquished her hold on the slumbering infant to Daisy, Arthur stole away for a conversation with his sister. They were seated together in their father’s study, what had been Arthur’s room as a kid. 

“You should talk with her, Jems,” Arthur was saying. 

Jemma had bristled slightly around the edges and defensively crossed her arms over her chest. “We’re working through it, Arthur,” Jemma replied. “It’s not going to happen overnight.” 

“Sure,” Arthur nodded. “But she’s really hurting, Jems.”  
“I’m not?” Jemma frowned. 

Arthur frowned at his sister. “It’s not fair to take a pound of flesh without giving of yourself in return, Jemma,” He pointed out. 

Jemma blinked and stared at her brother. 

“You’re not doing it on purpose,” Arthur went on. “You never would. It’s not the Jemma Simmons way,” He said. “She lost both of you,” He whispered. “A person can only shoulder a burden until their strength gives out, Jems. She needs you. You’re her strength. You have to share the burden.” He said. 

Jemma opened her mouth to speak but Arthur’s words had left her speechless. Before she could reply, their mother was calling them back to the living room and Jemma was left to shuffle back downstairs after her brother. The sight of Daisy with the baby gave her paused as she nuzzled the baby’s cheek with her nose and it caused his little body to wiggle and squirm about, which made Daisy chuckle. 

“That’s it, buddy, _Rock N Rolllll_ ,” she said the words in a slow singsong tone, which caused another round of chuckles to erupt and that’s when Jemma saw it, the deep pierce of sadness that was unabashedly visible in Daisy’s eyes even as she smiled at the baby or at Alice or one of the others as they continued to talk and fuss over the baby. She knew her brother was right. it wasn’t fair, the burden she had left Daisy to shoulder for the both of them. 

\---  
**_2018 --- September 11th_**

The past few months had brought change with them. Slowly, Jemma began to return. The real Jemma. They still fell into fights that seemed to erupt out of nowhere, but her Jemma had started to appear here and there in the way she sought out physical contact with Daisy. She had found new ways to show Daisy that she loved her, that she was there for her too and that it wasn’t a one way street of grief. She had become almost prolific with her reminders to Daisy that she loved her, finding all sorts of strange hiding places for Daisy to find hidden love notes. 

They had finally gotten around to the point of christening each and every room of their house. The more they came into contact with each other lately, the less one of them could keep their hands off the other. It had reminded Daisy, in some ways, of when they had first gotten together, how they had spent hours mapping out each other’s particular ticks and favored spots and positions. 

They spent long nights curled together, flesh to flesh with a stray sheet or blanket pulled over them, just talking through everything while carefully touching each other. Each touch, each stroke, each kiss and nuzzle was a new bandage to cover an old wound and heal them over into scars. 

Daisy felt, finally, like they could breathe a little easier. They weren’t walking around on eggshells around each other anymore. They fell back into a routine that was more than just a robotic shell of their former selves. They worked with purpose. They worked through the bigger issues between them surrounding the incident. They fell back into a groove. It wasn’t their original one, but they were moving forward, not backward. 

Somehow, Daisy felt like her birthday present for Jemma proved this fact. She pulled her car into the driveway and reached into the open carrier on the passenger seat for the little bundle of fluff she had picked up at the animal shelter. She craddled the kitten to her chest and decided she would come back to the car for the toys and supplies she had stopped to get on the way to the shelter. She carried the small dark gray furred ball of kitten fluff into the house, letting herself in and kicking her chucks off by the door. 

“Daisy?” Jemma called out from somewhere on the second floor after the alarm had let out a ring to alert her that the door had opened. 

“It’s me,” Daisy called back. “Where are you?” 

“Library!” Jemma called. “Where’d you disappear off to?” 

Daisy headed up the stairs and reached the library. She popped only her head in through the door. “Sorry, I had to run a last minute, very specific errand,” She grinned. “Did you like breakfast?” 

Jemma smiled. “I did,” she nodded. “I would have preferred to have you with it, though,” She bounced her eyebrows as she put the book in her hands down on the table next to the lounge chair. “What’re you up to?” she asked, narrowing her eyes slightly as she stood and crossed to the door. 

“Would you like your present now?” She asked. “Or after I’ve put a bow on it?” 

Jemma craned her neck to try and peek around the door frame to get a glimpse of whatever Daisy was holding. 

“Ah-ah-ah! No cheating!” Daisy pouted before she leaned over and stole a kiss. 

Jemma jumped back from the kiss at the sound of a squeaky little mew. “What was-,” 

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEM!” Daisy hopped into the threshold of the door and held up the kitten with both her hands. The kitten blinked his little eyes and sniffed the air in Jemma’s general direction. “C’mon buddy, we tried to practice this in the car didn’t we? HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEMMAAAAA!” The singsong way she said it caused the kitten to let out another little squeak meow and Jemma’s face contorted immediately as a hand flew to her mouth to cover it. 

Daisy laughed. “Yessss, you love him already, don’t you?” She teased at the major ‘aw!!’ expression that was plastered on Jemma’s face. She reached out to take the kitten from Daisy and pulled the little bitty ball of fluffy dark gray fur in to her chest. The kitten sniffed at her nose as she gently scratched behind one of his ears. The kitten out another little squeak. His ears wiggled happily at the scratches and seconds later he began to clobber Jemma’s nose with little kitten kisses, flopping a paw down on her cheek to hold her still as Jemma giggle. Daisy’s heart soared the moment she heard the sound. 

“What’s his name?” Jemma asked, leaning into Daisy when she wrapped an arm around Jemma’s middle. 

“Elvis,” Daisy beamed a smile as Jemma let out another giggle. 

 

\---  
**_2018 -- December 24th_**

Daisy awoke to the smell of pancakes, bacon and coffee. She stretched and sighed when her joints and back cracked. She pulled herself from bed and detoured to the bathroom to pee and brush her teeth. Then she sauntered down the stairs and to the kitchen. Jemma was at the stove, scrambling up some eggs in a frying pan in her reindeer pajama pants and thermal shirt. Elvis was perched on the counter, asleep snuggled into the bread bin next to the bagged loaf of sliced bread, with his tongue sticking out through the front of his lips. 

Daisy smiled. It was Christmas Eve and she had awoken happy and content. She had never thought she would feel this way again. She and Jemma had spent the last couple of months discussing whether or not they wanted to attempt to go through the adoption process. They were leaning toward yes. Right now, standing there watching Jemma as she bobbed her head to Christmas music playing softly from the radio while she moved a spatula in the frying pan to scramble the eggs, Daisy let another thought that had been nagging at her lately filter in. 

She approached Jemma, sliding her hands around her waist and letting them rest along Jemma’s abdomen as she pressed kisses into the nape of her neck, against her shoulder, and the side of her neck. Jemma jumped initially, startled momentarily before she leaned right back into Daisy’s embrace, resting her head back onto her shoulder.

“Mmm...good morning,” Jemma hummed as she went back to stirring the eggs about. 

“Morning,” Daisy murmured against the side of her neck. She kissed the back of her jaw and then brought her chin to rest on Jemma’s shoulder. “Sleep well?” she asked. 

Jemma nodded and turned her head to kiss Daisy’s temple. “Breakfast is almost done,” She said even though Daisy could very well see that. 

“Jem?” Daisy asked, sounding a bit unsure of herself. 

“Hmm?” Jemma hummed. She turned the heat off since the eggs were just about perfectly done and kept moving the spatula through them to break them up just right, the way she knew Daisy liked them. 

“I want to ask you something,” Daisy said. “It might upset you, and if it does, just say so and I’ll drop it, but I just...I’ve been thinking about it a lot, so…” 

Jemma tensed for a moment but relaxed in Daisy’s embrace. She turned and kissed Daisy’s temple again. “What is it, love?” she prompted, trying not to sound too nervous. 

Daisy turned her head down and kissed the top of Jemma’s shoulder again. Jemma moved the frying pan to one of the cold burners and set the spatula down on top of the eggs. Her arms came to rest on top of Daisy’s, hands resting on top of hers against her stomach. Daisy leaned her forehead against the side of Jemma’s head and dropped a kiss into her hair. There was a slight sway to their embrace that each seemed to always constantly fall right into when they were close together. 

“I’ve been thinking that,” she inhaled a steadying breath and braced for Jemma to shoot down her idea, but laid it out anyway. “...It’s been almost a year. I know we’ve been talking about looking into adoption, but…” she cleared her throat anxiously as she felt Jemma’s muscles tense under her touch. “We still have one of the embryos left with Doctor Fowler…” She trailed off. “And I just...I thought...well...maybe we could...try again while we’re looking into our adoption options…?” 

Jemma was quiet for a long moment. Her hands pressed into Daisy’s against her stomach. She knew Daisy’s fingers could find the seamline scar from her surgery, from when they had tried to get save Carter and had taken her organs with him to save her life. She exhaled a slow breath. “The thought had crossed my mind a few times,” She confessed in a whisper. “But...you’re forgetting that I can’t…” The hysterectomy had made sure of that. Even if it hadn’t, she wasn’t sure she could brave the procedure again, or attempting to make it through another pregnancy after the trauma of the last. 

“I know…” Daisy’s voice was gentle as she replied. She was quiet for a moment, long enough that Jemma thought the subject might have been dropped but then she spoke again. “...But I can…” 

Jemma froze for a moment. In her thoughts about the subject, it hadn’t occurred to her that this was a possibility. Was it one they wanted to broach? It seemed one Daisy wanted to. Jemma’s hands clenched around Daisy’s and, as she always did, Daisy waited silent and patient for her reaction. Jemma suddenly let go of Daisy and squirmed from her grasp. Daisy was opening her mouth to insist that it was okay, they didn’t have to talk about it when Jemma grabbed both sides of her face and pulled her down for a kiss, pressing her body flush against Daisy until she stumbled back into the edge of the kitchen island’s counter. 

“Does that...mean yes?” Daisy barely managed between kisses to ask it. 

“It means,” Jemma said against her mouth. “I love you,” she pressed her forehead to Daisy’s and kissed her once more, lacing her arms around Daisy’s neck and shoulders as Daisy’s hands found their way down her sides and to her waist. “And we should discuss it over bacon.” 

Daisy tilted her head. “What...no pie?” She asked. A bubble of laughter left Jemma’s throat before her lips were pressed to Daisy’s again.


	13. Feed The Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings:** Graphic violence and plenty of it 
> 
> The story isn't over yet, obviously, but I wanted to take a moment to say a very massive **T H A N K Y O U!!!!** To all of you for joining me on this adventure and reading along. I hope it's lived up to everything you've wanted it to so far!! I love seeing what you think of what crops up as the story progresses and I appreciate all the kind words, love, comments and kudos!! Feel free to always drop a line even just to say hello! ;0) 
> 
> Have a wonderful night, happy holiday season and healthy new year. I'll see you again once the next chapter's written up! 
> 
> As always, forgive me for my typos and grammatical errors, as I'm extremely flawed lol
> 
> <3  
> :0)
> 
> \------------------------------------------------

Jemma couldn’t stem the flood of tears that erupted when Daisy’s body arched off the bed and began to convulse. She had known it was going to happen. She had known that her blood pressure and her pulse-ox were going to spike. She had known all of these things were going to happen because of the last time Daisy had been injected with this ‘miracle drug.’ That’s what she had called it, at least, afterward, before she had known the truth of what it contained – when Coulson had kept that information from her and Fitz but had continued to have her analyze vials and vials of Daisy’s blood while she was recovering. She had tried to prepare herself for it but somehow, even knowing that this was what could bring Daisy back to her, Jemma couldn’t fight the tears as she held on, pressing a hand to Daisy’s chest while the other settled along the top of her head. She buried her face into the side of Daisy’s head, unable to bring herself to watch what she had just forced onto her wife without her conscious knowledge. “I’m sorry, Daisy…I love you,” she repeated it, over and over and over again through the sniffles her tears caused, trying her best to drown out the monitors even though she had to listen to them to know when it was all over whether or not Daisy might come out of this okay.

It felt like hours before Daisy’s body finally ceased jerking about and collapsed back into a limp heap on the bed, but logically, Jemma knew it couldn't have been more than a few minutes at most. The monitors were agonizingly silent for a moment, having been thrown off of their equalization thanks to all the surges they had just gone through. Jemma held her breath until the heart monitor began to beep again in a slow, stable rhythm. Her shoulders shook as she exhaled a sob that had been stuck in her throat. She kissed the side of Daisy’s head a stroked her hand over her hair a few times, repeating her mantra twice more in Daisy’s ear, apologizing.

Within twenty minutes of the injection, Daisy’s body began to struggle again. Unfortunately, it was not because it wanted to wake up. It struggled to regulate its own breathing. Jemma had pressed the call button and when the nurses arrived she asked them to page the doctor to remove the mechanical ventilator. This would also mean pulling Daisy out of the induced coma, which had already been started when the doctor had initially come in to go over Daisy’s vital signs and check the monitors for their recorded history and status before the injection.

By the end of the hour after the injection, the respirator had been replaced with a cannula tube that had been placed about Daisy’s nose and wrapped up her cheeks, around her ears and connected under her chin before it ran to an oxygen connection on the wall. Jemma was by no means prepared to consider them in the clear. She wouldn’t feel that way until Daisy was awake and allowed to go home. Until then, she could breathe a sigh of relief that she was watching Daisy breathe on her own, without a machine forcing it. She sat on the edge of the bed facing Daisy, occasionally reaching out to touch her cheek or stroke her hair as she held onto her hand while she waited for the medication to wear off so that Daisy could wake up. Every so often she would lean over and kiss the side of Daisy’s head and make a quiet plea into her ear to Daisy to come back to them now before issuing another, “I love you.” Like she already had been for days, Jemma was prepared to wait this out for however agonizingly long she had to.

\--

“Maybe it’ll work faster now,” Fitz was rambling as he dug into his food. The cafeteria in the hospital wasn’t half bad considering it was hospital cafeteria food. Mack and Fitz sat on one side of the table they had grabbed after getting their food. Across from them Lance and Bobbi sat with Lily in Bobbi’s lap. “Since her Inhuman DNA is active. If it metabolizes faster maybe by the time we’re done here-,"

“Fitz,” Bobbi cut Fitz off before he could say anything that might resemble the idea that Daisy would be awake when they returned to her hospital room. Fitz fell silent when he looked over at Bobbi and she made a show of widening her eyes and glancing down at the top of Lily’s head and then back up at Fitz.

Fitz cleared his throat and straightened in his chair. “Right,” He nodded. “Right, right,” he said as he went back to eating his meal. It wasn’t that Bobbi wasn’t hopeful for this supposed miracle drug, or cure, whatever one wanted to call it. She would have loved nothing more than to walk back into the hospital room only to find Daisy awake, but she didn’t want Lily to hear something like that and then return to the hospital room to find no change in her mother.

It was a struggle, getting Lily to actually eat, one that Bobbi and Lance had become familiar with over the last few days. There were compromises, and bribes made in order to get the little girl to eat. Lily was, understandably, upset. She had been through a lot with the accident/attack. There was a lot she didn’t understand. The group had witnessed the hard ‘why’ questions Lily had asked Jemma numerous times while Jemma had struggled to hold it together and figure out an answer for the little girl. It was brutal. Waiting was always the hardest part of situations like this, Bobbi knew that. Knowing didn’t make it any easier to handle.

Bobbi bounced her knees to bounce Lily up and down. “You don’t want to eat your chicken nuggets, honey?” she leaned over and around to look at Lily, who had been in her lap, halfway wrapped in her blanket, holding onto Groot by a death grip on his tail. Lily leaned back against Bobbi’s chest; two of her fingers were stuffed into her mouth. She shook her head in answer to the question and moved to turn in Bobbi’s lap so she could put her head down on her shoulder. Bobbi forced herself not to frown. She ran her hand up and down along Lily’s back. “You’re not hungry?” she prodded again. Lily shook her head again. Lance reached onto the corner of his plate and broke a piece of a cookie he had grabbed with the intention of giving it to Lily after she had eaten her dinner. He put his finger to his lips and mimed out a ‘shhhhh! Don’t tell!’ even though he was perfectly aware that Bobbi could see him holding the piece of cookie out to her. Bobbi smirked at Lance. Lily tilted her head and looked at Bobbi, who had barely had enough time to look across the table at Mack and Fitz to insert herself into their conversation.

Lily pulled her fingers out of her mouth and reached out to take the piece of cookie from Lance. She gave another sideways glance to Bobbi, who pretended she was engrossed in the conversation and had no clue as Lily ate the small piece of cookie. Lance managed to get Lily to eat a few of her chicken nuggets in between sneaky pieces of cookie until she at least had some food in her stomach. When the others had finished their food, Mack gathered and threw out their trash while Lance went to get food for May, Coulson and Jemma. He grabbed extra since Lily had only eaten a little bit of food with them. Bobbi adjusted her grip on Lily and stood up, bringing the little girl to rest on her hip. She carried Lily, one arm around her supporting her weight and her other arm wrapped around that holding onto her forearm for extra support. Lily kept her head down on Bobbi’s shoulder. She had stuffed a couple of fingers back into her mouth again and was clutching Groot to her chest as the group headed out of the cafeteria and back towards the elevator that would take them back to the ICU wing Daisy was in.

The four of them piled into the elevator, which was extra roomy at least since it needed to be able to fit a patient on a gurney and multiple other people. Bobbi shifted her weight from foot to foot to sway with Lily. “Do you want to stop in the gift shop and see if there are any new stories you can read for your Mama?” She tilted her head so she could look at Lily with the way she had her head down.

Lily lifted her head and considered this a moment but ultimately shook her head back and forth. Bobbi smiled and wrinkled her nose. “Yeahhhhhh, you’re right,” She said in a singsong tone with a nod. “She probably loves the Grinch too much to ever replace it - what was I thinking?” She teased, giving Lily an extra bounce or two. The little girl smiled around the fingers she was sucking, then dropped her forehead into the crook of Bobbi’s neck as the doors shut and the elevator began to move. They had five floors to travel but the elevator stopped on the second. Bobbi moved to the back corner of the elevator with Lily to get out of the way as a couple slipped into the elevator. Mack and Fitz backed up on the other side of the elevator to give them more room.

The couple moved into the elevator and turned around to face the doors as they closed. The elevator stopped again on the third floor. This time there was a doctor and an orderly, both dressed in scrubs, one with a lab coat and clipboard, both of similar stature and build to Mack. Their presence was the first thing to alert Bobbi that something was wrong. She turned to look at Lance but the woman from the couple that had stepped in on the second floor turned and immediately started making a fuss over Lily.

“Oh! Aren’t you just such pretty little girl!” She cooed at Lily. Bobbi felt Lily tense against her shoulder. She pressed her face further into Bobbi’s shoulder but the woman persisted. “I hope you’re not here because you’re sick?” She sympathized with an exaggerated frown. The ‘doctor’ glanced at them as someone called for them to hold the elevator.

It was as the orderly lunged to reach out to throw his hands in front of the elevator door sensors that Bobbi spotted the outline of a gun beneath his shirt, tucked into the waistband of his scrubs. Bobbi turned, with a gasp of suddenly realization, towards Lance and pulled on hand free to drop it on his bicep. “Babe! - Did you remember to feed the dog before we left?!” She asked.

Lance’s eyebrows arched up. He leaned his head back with a sigh, immediately knowing from the question that Bobbi had figured out that they were in some sort of trouble from this code. “Bloody hell…” He sighed. He gave Bobbi a small discreet nod. As Lance was turning back toward the front of the elevator, Bobbi pretended to spot that Lily’s shoe was untied. She turned them toward the back corner of the elevator and crouched down to the floor, setting Lily down on it.

“We certainly can’t let you walk around with your shoes untied, baby, can we?” She said as she started to mime tying Lily’s shoe.

Lance glanced at Mack, who just nodded. He was right with them. Fitz’s brow was furrowed. He had just enough time to turn to the side wall and flatten back against it before Lance and Mack surged forward, using their momentum to push the group forward. The woman and the initial soldier that had stepped onto the elevator wound up shoved out into the hallway and into the approaching ‘security guard.’ All three went sprawling to the ground. Lance grabbed the orderly by the back of the neck and shoved him before he could swing, towards the pile. He grabbed the gun from the man’s waistband as he did so. The three in the hallway were scrambling to their feet. Mack swung a fist and cracked the doctor as hard in the back of his head as he could. The man jolted and his feet fell out from under him.

“Don’t move!” Lance shouted to the group on the floor. The woman had made it to her feet but he aimed the gun at her and shouted, “I said - DONT. MOVE!” He ordered. Despite the gun, she lurched forward and Lance pulled the trigger. Bobbi had just enough time to clamp her hands over Lily’s ears and pull her into her chest to block her from having to see and hear what was happening.

“Oh, shit!” Lance said. The bullets in the gun weren’t regular bullets. They weren’t icers either. They were something more. The woman began to writhe on the ground.

“Hunter!” Bobbi scolded. Her eyes widened when she saw the woman on the floor. “Is that...is she…”

“They have terrigen crystals in them??” Fitz blurted as the dark gray cocoon began to form around her as she gasped and writhed on the floor.

They were caught so off guard, Mack didn’t see the doctor until he was already on his feet. He grabbed Fitz by the neck and used him as a shield, backing out of the elevator. “Of course I’m the shield,” Fitz muttered as he ground his teeth together.

“Fitz!” Bobbi called as Lance weighed his options with the gun, Mack stood next to him, fists balled and anger flaring in his face. Around the corner of the end of the hallway a squad of eight or so men, armed to the teeth and wearing tactical gear, rounded the corner and advanced.

“Just get her out of here!” Fitz shouted. He swung his hand to hit the “Door close” button just before the doctor dragged him out of the elevator.

“Fitz, no! Wait!” Mack shouted. There was no way to tell what kind of bullets were in the others’ guns. The doors began to shut and Mack glanced at Lance and Bobbi. “Get her to safety and alert May and Coulson.” rushed out the doors before they could close. Bobbi had jammed her finger into the door close button to make sure it kept closing. Bobbi hated leaving Fitz and Mack, but they needed to get Lily out of there to safety. They had to warn the others. The elevator began to move but stopped before it could reach the fourth floor.

“Bollocks,” Lance sighed. He put the safety on the gun and tucked it into the back of his waistband just as someone from the hall of the third floor started prying the doors open. There was about a foot of space that left a gap, not enough for a body to fit through, except for maybe Lily’s. Lance grabbed the gun.

“Lance, no!” Bobbi shouted. “What if they’ve got inhuman DNA? You’ll turn the place loose with untamed superhuman powers they can’t control!”

“What choice do we have?” Lance aimed the gun at the person who was trying to wedge their way through the gap and pulled the trigger. He flipped the safety back on and tucked the gun back into his waistband, glad that the person that he had just shot had started to writhe around, stuck in the hole as the cocoon formed around them. He pulled open the emergency panel in the ceiling and then leaned up to push the lift lid open. “C’mon,” He said to Bobbi, nodding toward it. “Up ya go, Love,” He braced his knees, squatted down slightly and folded his hands, turning his palms up to present Bobbi with a nod toward the opening. “Up you go, love,” He said.

Bobbi knew she had no choice. She let go of Lily and leaned back to look at her. “Lily...I need you to stay with me no matter what, okay? Can you do that?” She asked. Lily was shaking and whimpering. She hadn’t put her bubble up but that was only because she was still with people she knew would protect her. She nodded as she trembled. “Good,” She nodded. “We’re going to go climbing, okay? Just like Groot,” She forced a smile. Lily nodded. “Good girl, let me just take this for a second. She took Lily’s blanket and rolled it diagonally into the longest rope of blanket she could. She picked Lily up and handed the blanket to Lance. Lance wrapped it around her and Lily at about chest height on Bobbi and about waist height on Lily. He tied two knots into it as Lily clutched her arms around Bobbi’s neck.

Bobbi stepped onto Lance’s folded hands when he set back up, bracing her hands on his shoulders for support as Lance pushed with his knees to lift them up to the opening. Bobbi put her arms up and when she was high enough, hooked her elbows for leverage. Lance gave her a last push to get her up there. She turned around and bent down, sending her hand through the opening. “Your turn,” She informed him as bullets started crashing through the gap of the elevator. “Hunter, _now!_ ” Bobbi ordered. Lance took two steps and the highest leap he could. He caught Bobbi’s hand and she clamped the other one around his hand and forearm, pulling with her arms, pushing with her knees to stand up. Lance used his free hand to pull and push himself up and onto the ceiling of the elevator. He shut the latch and pulled his belt off to tie it through the loop so that they wouldn’t be able to push the latch open.

“ _Go_ ,” He said. Bobbi turned, using her cell phone’s flashlight to find the service ladder. They climbed to the sixth floor where there was an access panel that led into a janitor’s closet. Bobbi made her way through with Lily and Lance followed, shutting off the entrance when he was through. Lance cracked the door open to peek through and see if the coast was clear. 

Thankfully, since they had gone the extra floor up, it didn’t appear that anyone was searching the sixth floor yet. Lance started to go, but Bobbi stopped him. “Wait,” She untied the blanket and wrapped it around Lily before handing her over to Lance. 

Lily whimpered as she was passed around. Lance held her firmly to his chest, supporting her weight with one arm and cradling the back of her head with his hand as she buried her face into his neck and clutched onto Groot and her blanket. “Shhhh, it’s alright, love,” He murmured to her. 

With her hands free, Bobbi was able to pull her batons free from the sheath hidden beneath her jacket. She twirled them around as she took a deep breath and gave a nod. Yup, that was much better. She looked at Lance and Lily and considered suggesting that they hole up in the closet since no one knew they were here, but that meant she wouldn’t know if they were okay and Bobbi wasn’t prepared to make that choice. She and Lance exchanged a glance and each gave a solitary nod to let the other know they were ready to go. Bobbi bent and kissed him quickly before she led the way out of the janitor’s closet and down the hall. They went to the far end of the hallway to take a different stairwell than the one by the elevator since she assumed there would be hydra agents in that one. 

They moved quickly and quietly down the two small flights of stairs. At the stairwell door, Bobbi turned the handle gently and cracked the door open, leaning back against it to squint through and check the hall. It seemed like the coast was clear but once they left the stairwell, a swell of tactical gear clad Hydra soldiers came rounding out from the stairwell by the elevator. “Cover,” Bobbi murmured. Lance ducked around a nurse’s station and dropped to the floor with Lily. He covered one of her ears and murmured assurances in the other while Bobbi went to work with a stony glower on her face. As far as Bobbi was concerned, attacking her family meant war and she had been itching to dole out some consequences. 

\---- 

Jemma’s focus was on Daisy in the hospital bed, as it had been for over an hour. Well, it had been for days, obviously, but more so since the injection. Coulson had left when he was called away by the Inhuman team that he had tasked with finding details on what Ward’s full plan had been for taking Daisy and Lily. He hadn’t wanted to go but Jemma had told him that he needed to and May had given him a solemn nod to let him know that she would hold everything down here in his absence. 

With her focus on Daisy, Jemma was still aware of something causing May to sit up straighter in her chair. Jemma didn’t turn to ask her about it. If there was an issue, May would speak up, she knew that. Still, Jemma did close her eyes a moment to sharpen her focus, attempting to listen for anything out of the ordinary that May might have heard to cause alarm. Her eyes popped open, startled, when she thought she felt Daisy’s fingers twitch. Her eyes turned down to their entwined hands and then shifted to Daisy’s face. “...Daisy?” She spoke her name softly and stared at her wife’s face, waiting for a response - the twitch of an eyebrow, crease of the forehead, curl of the lip...anything that would mean Daisy was coming around. 

May’s eyes were on the door of the room. They had never left it after she had sat up straight. She thought she had heard something, but it was very faint, which would mean it was far away. She didn’t want to be paranoid but, at the same time, she would have great cause for such a mental state. So she listened. She was aware of Jemma saying Daisy’s name and had it in the back of her mind that it was possible Daisy was waking up but, right then, there was something else afoot and May was going to figure it out. 

Both Jemma and May were on their feet before they had even properly registered the sounds they heard next. It was a loud, unmistakable, piercing shriek. Jemma and May were both frozen for just the fraction of a split second. 

“Lily…” Jemma breathed. That was Lily. There was no mistaking it. Jemma made it to the door first but as she gripped the handle it was thrown open. The door hit Jemma in the clavicle, cheekbone and forehead and the momentum threw her back against the rail of the bed. The bed jolted from its spot a few inches as Jemma gripped at the rail behind her, trying regain her bearings from the sudden hit and shock. 

May had been close enough behind her that the moment the man behind the door was in through it, he was met with her fist, which collided with the entire force of her body thrown behind it. It hit him square in the nose, shattering bones and cramming them back into his sinus cavity. With a gurgled groan, he collapsed to the ground and the man rushing to get in behind him stumbled. Unfortunately there were two more right behind him. 

Jemma was temporarily frozen in fear. She could only think of Lily and the need to get to her as her vision spun. May managed to take out one of the three new intruders. The other two were on her already and there was a gun waving around in the air. Jemma jumped as bullets popped off into the ceiling tiles. May managed to twist the intruder’s arm the opposite way it was supposed to bend with a loud crunching snap and the next bullet shot straight into his comrade's neck. Instead of blood spurting out from the wound, the man fell to the floor and began to gasp and writhe about the floor. Jemma’s eyes widened when she realized what was happening to him as the dark rigid cocoon began to spread over his whole body. 

Around the frame of the threshold, two more intruders came, just as May was dropping the man in front of her with a firm twist of his head. May tilted her head to crack her neck and immediately went after the first man. The second got past her and Jemma had just enough time to duck as he swung, throwing his whole upper body behind the punch intended for her to the point that he wound up almost doubled over with the momentum and he almost crashed onto the hospital bed. Jemma grabbed one balled fist with her other and swung it as hard as she could at his stomach, directly into his diaphragm. Immediately the man was on his knees, unable to gulp down air. Jemma reeled back and swung her fist at his face, knocking him the rest of the way to the floor as pain exploded through her knuckles and radiated all the way to her elbow. 

May fell back next to him when the man she was fighting managed to sweep her legs out from under her. He had her by the throat with one hand and had already landed two good shots to her face with the other before Jemma had clambered over the foot soldier she’d knocked the wind out of and yanked May’s sidearm from its holster by her hip. She flipped the safety with her thumb, stretched her arms out to brace them, wielding it with both hands, as she aimed. She immediately fired off three rounds, into the man’s side and shoulder before she realized it was most definitely an actual sidearm and not one of the night guns. 

May shoved the man off her as he fell limp. She was up on her knees immediately. May had time only to grab Simmons' hands and spin her around. Her finger clamped over Jemma’s and squeezed the trigger twice more into the man who had had the wind knocked out of him when he tried to lunge for Jemma. Jemma’s hands were shaking as May pulled the gun free but the moment it was out of her hands, she scrambled to her feet. 

“Lily,” She said to let May know that she wasn’t waiting here. She yanked a knife from one of the dead men’s belts and was out of the room before May could stop her. 

“Simmons!” She cast a glance back at Daisy, reluctant to leave her unprotected. Lily was paramount. If nothing else, Daisy would understand that and would have wanted her kept safe at all costs. Obviously this much was true, as Daisy had already died protecting the little girl. 

It was Jemma, too. May was in the hall, chasing after Simmons only feet behind the determined scientist as she stalked through the hall. May had never seen the murderous rage on Simmons face that was carved into it now as they moved, rushing into the backs of a bottleneck of soldiers that were rushing to try and overtake Bobbi who was holding her own with her batons, though she had taken a good few hits herself in the fray. 

From the time she had swiped May’s gun to the point that she reached the back of the first soldier, Jemma’s fear had turned into slaughterous rage. That these grown-ass men were so intent on destroying her family, on threatening her baby, it was completely unacceptable. She gripped the knife and swung it down with force into the back of the neck of the first soldier, below his helmet. She yanked the knife free with a forward jerk to do as much arterial damage as possible as she unceremoniously pulled it free and moved on to the next with May catching up and diving right into the fight along with her. 

“MUMMY!” Jemma spun, looking past the fight Bobbi was in, spinning her body and swinging her batons around with fluid ferocity, connecting blows on almost every swing. Lance was fighting off some soldiers that had found him and Lily, but he was greatly outnumbered. They dragged him back from her, one soldier on each arm. Lance used their grip to pull himself up, swinging his feet up to wrap around a soldier’s neck and head before he could get a hand on Lily. He twisted his hips and swung the man around, snapping his neck. The man fell and Lance’s feet hit the ground. Before he could regain his balance to break free from the other two, one of the soldiers jammed a sidearm to his neck. 

“Bollocks…” He clenched his eyes shut. Before the soldier could pull the trigger, one of Bobbi’s batons flew and snapped him in the back of the neck before it flew back to her pulled by the cuffs around her wrists that they were linked to. The man collapsed and Lance grabbed his gun and used it on the last soldier that had him, feeling relief that it was an actual gun and not one of the rigged terrigen guns. He turned to rush for Lily but before he could reach her, a soldier careened around the desk and tackled him. The soldier right behind him dashed for Lily. 

“LILY!” Jemma’s voice shrieked, carrying through the hallway in both directions. “BUBBLE!” She barely got the word out but the soldier had gotten a hand on Lily’s arm and had her off the ground. By the time the violet colored shield had circled Lily, it included the soldier’s arm and shoulder as she dashed around the corner down the hall, making him immune to its ability to shock an attack. Jemma had been moving the moment she had spied Lance and Lily in trouble. She barely cast a glance at a single person advancing on her. Her hands moved of their own accord not of her conscious choice, wielding the knife and one of the soldier’s guns to clear a path to chase after the man abducting her daughter. She rounded the corner and sprinted down the hall after them as Lily sobbed, dropping Groot and her blanket in their wake as she tried to break free from the stranger’s grasp. 

\-- 

When Daisy awoke, it was to darkness. She had found herself bolt upright in a hospital bed, gasping for air. For a few moments as she tried to get her bearings about her, trying to bring her vision into focus and to fight the dizzy spells away, she thought she was still in the strange realm she had been trapped in, the place where she had seen dead friends and monsters from her past. As her brain started to assemble what was going on she realized she was in the hospital. There were monitors to her right. There were wires and tubes attached to her. Pain. There was pain. It was everywhere. It was the only thing that let her know she was really awake instead of still stuck in the phantom abyss of her mind. There was fire in her veins, a fire the likes of which she had only felt once before. It boiled its way through her veins, rushing adrenaline and Daisy had no idea what else to her every nerve. Her senses opened and as the rest of her surroundings came into focus in the dim light of the machines, she realized that she had woken up to warn Jemma about Ward. She turned to her left to find that she was alone in her hospital room...with a floor full of dead and bloody men. 

Daisy heard her heart monitor as its pace started to race. Where was Jemma? Where was Lily? Her mind began to repeat their names over and over again. Daisy tore the tube from her nose and off her face. She hastily pulled the monitor sensors off of her chest and out from under her hospital gown. The IV lines, each in her right arm, one in the back of her hand and the other in the crook of her elbow, were carelessly yanked out before she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Before she could move further she spotted the cocoon on the floor and it gave her a momentary pause. _What the fuck is going on?!_ she had time to think before she pushed herself off the bed and landed on the floor, catheter bag still tied to the inside of her upper thigh. 

Daisy’s feet hit the ground and the moment she let her weight go on them she collapsed to her hands and knees in a heap. She was already sweating. She was already breathing heavily. She didn’t have time to think about this situation; there was only time for action. She grabbed a knife, the first weapon she could find, from one of the dead bodies and dragged herself into the hallway on her hands and knees. She pulled herself up to her feet and leaned against the wall. The hallway was much worse than the hospital room. Emergency lights blinked. An alarm of some kind was sounding and the hall was littered with bodies. Daisy’s heart hammered in her chest. 

It took her some time, stumbling, to climb over the bodies. She slipped numerous times, groaning in pain as she went, as her body continued to heal itself in the wake of the surges of fiery alien blood while it did its thing coursing through her systems and synapses. She fought to keep her focus. She needed to focus, to do all the things that May had taught her to keep calm and in control. She stumbled by the end of the hall, tripping over something by the nurse’s station. She scrambled up onto her elbows and back but then she saw what she tripped over. It was another cocoon. She had tripped over its outstretched hand. The poor bastard had...Daisy let out a gasp of a scream. “No...No, no, no… _Hunter_?!” She scrambled again, on her hands and knees know over to the cocoon. Her hands hovered over it, unsure what to do. Was he under there? Was he changed? Was he...was he dead? Daisy’s eyes filled. 

All at once as the panic had started to filter in, she heard the sound of something breaking free and crumbling against the floor. She looked at the outstretched hand of the cocoon and let out a relieved sob to see a hand twitching, trying to free itself from the rough shell of the cocoon. At once, Daisy used the butt of the knife to start breaking cracks in the cocoon. Eventually, she managed to help pull Hunter free from the cocoon. He was gasping for air and trembling, shaking as he tried to stand. “Hunter...Hunter, stop - stop!” Daisy dropped the knife and grabbed him by the face, holding a firm hand on either side of it. 

“Breathe...take deep breaths. Stay as calm as you possibly can,” Her voice was dry and it cracked multiple times. 

Hunter’s eyes were wide as he shook. They widened further as he registered that Daisy was in front of him, speaking. “You’re...you’re a-awake…” He gasped. Daisy nodded. 

“Lily,” Daisy said. “Where’re Lily and Jem? The others?” She asked him.

Lily. Hunter was on his feet, scrambling. He turned in all directions, momentarily dazed and then rushed to the end of the hall and around the corner. Daisy pulled herself up, steadier on her feet, but her knees still wobbling. 

“No,” Hunter murmured as she dashed midway down the hall and snatched Lily’s baby blanket up from the floor. There were blood spatters on it. 

Daisy’s eyes landed on the blanket hanging from his hand and then she spotted Groot further down the hall. Daisy’s feet moved before her brain even registered it. She raced down the hall; stumbling, shambling and pulling herself back up as she continued on, following the blood and trail of bodies. Hunter was close on her heels, shaking his head and limbs to try and make them feel normal as heat began to well within him. 

\---- 

Fitz’s hands were too shaky to pick open the lock for the roof of the hospital to get to the helipad there. “I-I can’t get it!” He called to Mack, who had just finished taking out the last of the Hydra agents that had followed them into the stairwell. 

“Move!” Mack called. Fitz turned sideways and pressed back against the wall to the side of the door just in time as Mack raced up the stairs, grabbing one wrist with the opposite hand and leaning as he went. His shoulder collided with the door with an explosive bang. The door burst open and Mack actually tumbled to the ground and rolled before he was scrambling up onto his feet again. Fitz was close on his heels as the bus landed and the back bay door came down. Fitz just kept running. He headed straight into the bus and towards the armory without any explanation whatsoever. Coulson rushed out with a handful of the Inhumans all decked in their tactical gear and ready for a fight. Mack started explaining what he knew of the situation, which was scarcely enough information to leave them with no other option but going in partially blind to the full scope of the situation. 

Coulson ordered the team to move out and told Mack to arm himself and keep the Bus secured and ready for takeoff with Fitz, Joey and Alicia. He led the team into the hospital through the door that Mack had busted through. 

\--- 

“Hunter!” Daisy and Hunter were in one of the stairwells. She had Hunter pushed back into the corner of where the two walls met, holding him there with a hand on either side of his head as she looked at him. He was shaking, his pupils were dilated and his skin was warm to the touch. Beads of sweat had formed on his forehead and he already had sweat stains beginning to form on his shirt. His eyes shifted everywhere but locking onto Daisy’s, seemingly feral and uncontrollable. 

“Hunter! Look at me, hey – no, hey…look at me!” Daisy commanded. She wanted to help him. She needed him to help her so she could protect Jemma and Lily. But the fact remained that she didn’t have time for this shit. Hunter’s eyes finally met Daisy’s and she almost breathed a sigh of relief. “I know you feel like you can’t, but you have to keep yourself calm. You can’t let it tweak you out over the edge. Regulate your breathing, find a happy place in your brain – I don’t care how you do it but you either do it or you get out of this hospital and you find the most secluded place that you can because we have no idea what you’re going to be able to do or how many innocent people it could kill – and that includes Bobbi, who is somewhere in this hospital,” Daisy spoke with a commanding voice but internally she was panicking. She needed to find her wife and her daughter and she needed to do it _now_. She was still weak. She was still dealing with the burn through her veins; with the restructuring the Kree injection was doing to her to heal her wounds quicker. She had been unconscious for who knew how long and her muscles were stiff and wobbly from disuse. She was going to need all the help she could get and, right now, that potentially meant taking Hunter with her as a brand spanking new untested inhuman into the field. 

Hunter clenched his eyes. He nodded as he took a few slow deep breaths to try and calm his racing heart. He felt like a restless MMA fighter, waiting for a match to start. His body buzzed with adrenaline and life. He itched to throw the first punch, to cause as much damage as possible. He was ready to go, but he didn’t know where to start. He tried to focus his thoughts on Bobbi. Find Bobbi; make sure she was okay. That was his goal. When he opened his eyes again, Daisy was relieved to find that they seemed suddenly focused. “I’m good,” He said. “Let’s go.” 

Daisy hesitated a moment and then nodded. There was no more time she could spare to waste. She let go of Hunter and they kept moving. They let themselves out onto the first floor, where the trail they had been following led to. The halls were dark and the lights flickering similarly to the hall on the fifth floor. It reminded Daisy of the lights in the hospital wing when she had been unconscious, in her subconscious brain world and the memory of Ward coming to taunt her sent a wave of shudders down her spine. She pressed on, ignoring her exhaustion and the ache that was spreading throughout her body, deep through her bones. Lily. Jemma. Lily. Jemma. Lily. Jemma. Their names looped in her mind, kept her feet moving, kept her focus solid and her pulse under control. She would get to them before it was too late, whether or not it was the last thing she ever did. 

\--- 

“Man, this kid is one squirmy runt!” The Hydra agent that had originally grabbed Lily complained. Lily was wailing as she swung her arms and legs around, trying to break free of his grasp. He leaned over with a groan when her foot caught him in the gut and moved to set her down. 

“Yuri! If you put that kid down, I will tear your spine from your torso before you can blink!” Ward’s voice boomed and made the soldier, Yuri, suddenly bolt straight to attention, gripping Lily tighter to ensure he didn’t drop her. “That’s better,” Ward’s grizzled voice rumbled as he approached. 

Lily froze when she saw him, immediately recognizing him from the car accident. Fat tears streaked down her cheeks and she kept her shield in place, even though her bubble of protection enclosed around Yuri’s arm, shoulder and side since he had had a hold of her before it had been in place. Ward had realized this when he spotted them after turning into the cafeteria room they were holed up in. 

“If you put her down, we lose her to her powers,” Ward explained as he walked closer. “Hello Lily,” he laced his voice with false sweetness as Lily trembled in Yuri’s arms. “What are you gonna do with her?” Yuri asked. 

“Don’t you worry about that, Yuri,” Ward gave Yuri a firm thwack on the back of his unprotected shoulder. “Right now, we just need some bait.” He grinned. “Bait, sir?” Yuri asked. 

Ward rolled his eyes and sighed. “If you want a mama hawk to return to the nest, the quickest way to ensure is to go after its eggs,” He said. He gave Lily a small smile. “After that it’s a waiting game.” 

“For the mothers?” Yuri asked. 

Ward laughed. “Oh, no. They’ll be here shortly. One of them at least. The other is out of the equation. We’ll take care of her later.” He murmured. “The waiting game is for her.” He nodded to Lily. 

“Sir?” 

“Her shield won’t hold forever,” A wicked grin twisted up Ward’s lips. “Sooner or later she’ll run out of energy.” 

Lily could understand enough of what they were talking about along with their tones to know that she should be scared. She whimpered and trembled. She didn’t know what to do, only that she needed to find her Mummy because Mama said she wasn’t supposed to take down her bubble for anyone but Mummy unless she said so. With renewed fear, Lily began to kick and squirm. She threw a hand at Yuri’s face and dug her fingers blindly into his eye and nostril as she tried to push his face as far away from her as she could. Yuri let out a cry and bent forward, reaching out to try and grab her wrist. Lily bent over and bit his hand as hard as she could when it clamped around her forearm. At the same time she swung her foot and with a lucky break she caught him right in the crotch. Ward screamed at Yuri but Yuri at once lost control and dropped Lily. 

With a shriek of fear, Lily went sailing for the ground. Ward reached out to catch her only to be blasted back by the electric shock wave that pulsed for anyone outside the sphere that touched it. Lily bounced off of his grip and landed hard on the ground with a wail of pain as, for just a second the bubble fell away. Pain surged through Lily’s arm from the fall. Ward dove for her and the commotion of his movement brought her back to what was happening around her, resulting in the shield snapping back into place, which left Ward groaning in pain as he fell back from the shock again. 

Lily scrambled, crawling away at first until she could pull herself up onto unsteady feet, still crying loudly. 

“Lily,” Ward spoke in a falsely sweet tone again, faking his best soothing voice possible. “Sweetheart…I’m not going to hurt you…why don’t you let me take a look at your arm, hm? You hurt it in that fall, didn’t you?” He slowly took a step toward her. 

Lily stared up at Ward, clearly frightened by the man’s tall stature and grizzly features – a ghastly scar all across his neck, a scar that started at his right temple, circled around his eye and came down the side of his nose and then continued in a jagged slash down his lips and to his chin, a completely missing left ear, marbled blobs of scar tissue covering both of his hands – the result of extreme burns. His right eye was clouded, a milky color that cast over his pupil and iris in a ghoulish manner. To Lily’s little brain, he quite literally looked like a monster, the kind she was convinced hid under her bed or in her closet that her Mama always made sure weren’t lurking before she was tucked in for bed. With wide, fearful eyes full of tears, Lily backed away from Ward with a whimper. 

Ward put his hand up, as if the motion would make her stop retreating. “Lily…don’t be afraid. I’m just going to wait here with you until your mom gets here and then we’re going to have ourselves a little talk, that’s all,” he lied as he took two slow steps forward. 

Lily rushed to back up and stumbled over her own feet. When she fell back, she landed on the elbow of the arm she had already hurt and let out a loud wail of pain. Ward tried to step forward to grab her but the violet shield never came down this time. Lily cradled her wounded arm into her chest and threw her head back and her mouth open as she began to wail. She was scared and hurt and she wanted her moms to come and find her. 

Ward ground his teeth together. His plan hadn’t been to use Lily as bait without the ability to grab hold of her and carry her away. He turned back to Yuri, who was just climbing to his feet then, and grabbed the man by the sides of his head. In one sudden, sickly cracking twist, he spun the man’s head around and yanked, pulling it clean off of the man’s shoulders. The body immediately fell to the ground with its last twitches of life. Part of the spine hung from the neck and head. Ward tossed it over his shoulder, satisfied at the relief of stress the act gave him as Lily shrieked in fear. Ward tilted his head from side to side and rolled his shoulders, cracking his neck and shoulder blades. He started on a determined march toward Lily. 

Panicked and terrified, Lily pulled herself to her feet and turned, running as quickly in the opposite direction of the monster as she could. The door at the other side of the cafeteria that she was running toward flew open and, already in a fearful frenzy, Lily turned and ran in another direction as fast as her little legs would take her. Ward had just started to rush after her when the door crashed against the wall next to it. He looked up in time to see Jemma as she crashed through it. A wicked grin once again twisted up his lips but disappeared just as he realized she was aiming at him. He didn’t have time to duck either way as Jemma pulled the trigger on the taser she had swiped from a dead hospital security guard. Two metal prongs flew from the end of the gun and embedded into Ward’s chest. Jemma kept her finger squeezed on the trigger as Ward collapsed to the ground, twitching and burbling, unable to pull himself up off the floor. 

Jemma’s march toward him never stopped as he convulsed on the floor, practically foaming at the mouth from the electricity suddenly jolting through him. When she reached his side she dropped the gun portion of the taser and was on him a moment later. Her fists were balled tightly. With previously practiced and learned precision, Jemma laid into Ward, pounding fist after fist into him with calm, determined unwavering rage. For long moments, Ward was unable to control his own limbs. As his motor skills returned to him, he suddenly began to laugh with unrestrained hysteria. The sound unnerved Jemma. She dropped him down to the floor and wrapped both of her hands around his throat and began to squeeze so tightly that her nails dug in and broke the skin at the front and back of his neck. 

Ward had murdered her son. Ward had, technically, murdered her wife. Ward had tried multiple times to kidnap her daughter. She wasn’t leaving this spot until he was dead and she was damned sure of it. She was so focused on her intention to choke the life out of Ward that she hadn’t seen his back up squad of soldiers until she was suddenly on the ground underneath one of them. Before he could swing at her, Jemma’s fists flew up and her arms covered her face and head to take the blow. The room erupted in another massive fight of bodies and weapons then as May and Bobbi made it from their previous fight into the cafeteria. Bobbi threw one baton and the man swinging at Jemma collapsed onto her as the baton flew back to Bobbi’s waiting hand. 

Jemma scrambled up. She wanted to go back after Ward but he was off the ground already, running in the direction Lily had scampered off to when Jemma had burst through the door. Jemma wasn’t about to let him get away. She pulled the knife she’d stolen earlier from her belt and ran, ducking blows as the grunt soldiers attacked her on her course, keeping an eye for which way Ward had gone. The faint sounds of Lily crying spurred her on; renewing both her adrenaline and her carnal blood lust for revenge against Ward for all that he had stolen and tried to steal from her. 

\--- 

Daisy and Hunter heard Lily’s cries as they made their way in the direction of what sounded like a pretty massive fight. As they were rushing through the hallway in the direction of the cries when someone stumbled out into the hall and turned toward the direction that Lily’s cries alerted him to. Ward. It was Ward. Daisy’s hand flew out before she was consciously thinking about it. She swiped it in sideways motion aimed at his feet and the wave of vibrations that shot out from it knocked Ward’s legs right out from under him. Ward face planted with a groan and then was laughing as he rolled over and jumped to his feet. 

Ward threw his head back and laughed louder when he saw Daisy in her hospital gown, looking weak and frazzled. She looked angry too but he would have expected that much, considering. 

“My turn,” Hunter made to dash for Ward but Ward yanked a gun from the back of his waistband and aimed it at Hunter. 

“Ah-ah-ah, buddy,” Ward said in a singsong tone. 

Hunter’s hands went up, arms bent at the elbows, and palms facing Ward. His fingers twitched as he bounced on his toes as if wondering whether or not charging would be worth the price of getting shot again. He couldn’t just stand still and do nothing anymore. All the pent up energy inside him…suddenly lit up the hallway they were in as circles of brilliant heated white light engulfed his hands all the way from fingertips to his wrists. All three of them stopped and stared wide eyed. “Bloody hell…” Lance whispered as it happened. 

“Hunter…” Daisy said at the same time. 

Hunter’s feral gaze caught Ward’s just as he started to take a few steps backward down the hall. A sadistic smile curled its way up Hunter’s lips. “Just where do you think you’re going, Grant, old buddy?” He asked. He twitched forward like he was going to attack and Ward reacted, dodging to the other side. At that point, Hunter aimed his hands and swung them forward. The two balls of energy surged from his hands, morphing together into a blob the size of a basketball. In a flash energy ball made it down the hall and crashed into Ward. The force of the blast sent him flying, end over end through the wall next to him and into the room behind it, leaving only his legs sticking out, beant at the knees over the bottom ridge of the hole in the wall in a twisted heap. 

Daisy’s eyes were wide in the wake of the moment as Hunter’s hands faded back to normal. “WOOOOO!!” Hunter let out a whoop, bouncing back and forth on his feet in victorious glee. He had a big excited grin on his face as he turned to Daisy. “Ohhhh I’m going to enjoy this!” He cheered. “Go on, go get Lily,” He rubbed his hands together as he stalked toward Ward’s seemingly motionless body. “I’ll take care of the rubbish.” He said as he went. 

Daisy wanted to warn him about getting too excited but Lily’s safety was paramount. She took off then at the fastest jogging pace she could in her current condition, rushing past Ward and the hole in the wall, past the cafeteria with whatever battle was raging inside it and after the sounds of her daughter’s wails and whimpers. Near the end of the hall, she stumbled to a stop out front of door that had been pushed mostly shut. Through the window of the door she could see the telltale violet glow she had long ago learned to associate with Lily’s bubble. She pushed the door open as she rushed in. Lily let out a fearful cry. “Lily!” Daisy nearly let out a sob when she finally laid eyes on the girl. 

Lily’s sobs stopped momentarily when she heard the voice. She focused just long enough to recognize her Mama through the tears in her eyes and then in a rush was scampering across the floor on unsteady feet. Daisy dropped down and caught Lily in her arms, pulling her into her chest and wrapping her up tightly in her embrace. “I’ve got you! I’ve got you, baby, it’s okay, I know, Monkey. I love you. I know,” Her hands gripped onto the girl, holding the back of her head and her back tightly as Lily clung to her and sobbed loudly into her neck. Daisy planted kisses along the side of Lily’s head and her shoulder. The last time she had seen her daughter, Daisy had been slowing drowning, choking on her own blood in the hollow of a tree after the car accident. 

Daisy pulled back from Lily. “Are you hurt?” she ran her hands over the sides of Lily’s face, over her shoulders and down her arms, taking stock of every bit of her daughter’s condition. Lily immediately let out a wail of pain and Daisy frowned. She looked down at the arm that Lily pulled into her chest as tears kept rolling down her face and she whimpered. She could see that there was an unnatural bump to Lily’s arm and it made a swell of anger boil in her gut the likes of which she had not felt since they had lost Carter. She took a steadying breath and exhaled it shakily. “Can I see, honey?” She asked gently, reaching out to run her hand over Lily’s hair and down along her good arm. Lily was trembling so bad, she could hardly hold her arm out toward Daisy. Daisy pulled her closer, letting her lean her uninjured side into her chest. Lily’s face buried into the crook of Daisy’s chest automatically. 

Daisy ran a hand over the back of Lily’s hair and down her back. “I know, baby, I know…I won’t let anything happen to you,” She promised as she had the day of the accident. With great care, she reached out and gingerly pushed the loose sleeve of Lily’s pajama shirt back. Lily whimpered and Daisy cringed. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” She whispered as she looked down at her daughter’s injured arm. Though the skin wasn’t broken open, Daisy could see that the bone beneath it clearly was. The sight unnerved her, to see her daughter hurt meant that someone had gotten to her before she could have put her bubble into place, or they had done something to her to cause it to falter. 

The sounds of battle in the hallway came closer. With a frown, Daisy carefully pulled Lily’s sleeve back down and looked for a viable exit other than one she would need to head out into the hallway to use. There were no options but to go into the hallway. “Okay…Lily, look at me, sweetie,” she gave Lily a small reassuring smile. “We’re going to get out of here okay? I know your arm hurts,” She reached for the pillow on the hospital bed next to Lily and pulled the pillow out of it. Rolling the material up, she looked at Lily again. “I know this is going to hurt, I'm sorry, baby. I want you to lean into my shoulder and when it hurts, you just bite down to keep from making any noise, okay? Can you do that for me?” She asked. Lily shook with fear. One of the first things Daisy had noticed when she had pulled Lily in was that she had been so frightened at some point that she had wet herself. Daisy struggled to contain the rage that built inside her, to keep her pulse from surging. She needed to be calm and focused. Lily nodded and Daisy gently wiped the tear streaks off her cheek and kissed her forehead. 

Daisy angled the pillow case diagonally across Lily so it would go over her left shoulder and down to her right side. Lily leaned into her shoulder and Daisy felt the little girl’s teeth dig in sharply as she brought the pillow case across her and tied it in a tight double knot at the back so that she could pin Lily’s injured arm to her chest for the time being to keep it from jostling about as much as would be possible. “I’m sorry, baby,” Daisy whispered as she heard the muffled cry that stifled into her shoulder and felt the skin beneath her hospital gown breaking under the pressure of the bite. 

“Okay,” She gently wiped at Lily’s cheeks again and held onto her by the sides of her face. “I know you’re scared, Monkey, but I need to you be just as brave as you’ve been so far for just a little bit longer, okay?” She asked, already hating herself for having to ask so much of her daughter when she was supposed to be strong for Lily instead. Lily nodded and Daisy pulled her back in, wrapping her up in her arms and picking her up off the ground. Lily whimpered but she did it through closed lips, burrowing her face into Daisy’s neck to muffle the sound. “Lily, I love you,” Daisy told her, forcing her urge to cry for all her daughter had been through because of her. “Bubble,” she added to make sure Lily pulled her defensive shield back into place. 

Daisy popped her head into the hallway to check whether or not she would be able to make a clean escape with Lily. In the hall, Lance and Ward were fighting, Lance’s powers were fairly hit or miss at the moment but he seemed to be enjoying them. Daisy wasn’t sure what Ward had injected himself with, but whatever it was, he was going toe to toe with Lance, each of them trading forceful blows that toppled walls or knocking ceiling tiles out. Daisy’s eyes widened when Jemma appeared from the room she had heard fighting in on her way to get Lily. 

Ward had had Hunter in a stranglehold from behind. Daisy had been considering stepping into the hall and using her powers to throw Ward aside when Jemma dashed from the doorway and took a flying leap up onto Ward’s back. At the same time she took the leap, one hand wrapped around his head to blind him and the other buried a knife into the divot between his shoulder and clavicle burrowing it in all the way to the hilt and twisted. Her legs hooked around his waist as she yanked his head backward. Daisy rushed into the hall, holding the back of Lily’s head against her shoulder, her other arm wrapped around Lily under her rear to hold her weight. With a loud roar of anger and pain, Ward dropped Lance. In the next second, he took swift steps back and slammed Jemma backward into the wall behind Him. She ripped a good chunk of flesh from his cheek as she fell. 

“JEMMA!” Daisy shouted before she could catch the call in her throat. Ward and Jemma both paused. Both sets of eyes widened when they saw her there in the hallway with the violet shielded Lily in her arms. Daisy was a ghastly sight herself in the hospital gown, blood all up and down her right arm from pulling out the IV lines, some running down her leg from the painful pull of the catheter line. She had ignored the pain from both since it was indistinguishable from her multitude of injuries still healing throughout her body. Her skin was pale, her lips cracked. Some of the bruises and cuts were still there across her face and limbs. It was hard to breathe still, but nowhere near as difficult or painful as it had been right after the accident. Her hair was matted with sweat from her body’s exertion to move after it had been left idle and injured so long in the coma she had been in and also from the work her body was doing with the Kree injection to repair itself. 

Ward moved first. A swift blow to the side of the head that sent Jemma jolting backward; the back of her head crashed into the wall that Ward had rammed her back into previously and Jemma collapsed in a heap. He turned then to head for Daisy and Lily as Daisy let out a wild unintelligible scream and barely resisted the urge to rush toward Jemma. Before Ward could take a second step, hunter lunged for him, his hand covered in the brilliant white colored orb which he wrapped around Ward’s half. Ward threw his head back and let out a scream as he collapsed to the ground. 

Daisy took one step toward them down the hall. Hunter lifted his head and looked over Ward’s writhing form at Daisy and Lily. “GO!” he screamed at her. Jemma wouldn’t have wanted her to come back for her, not when Lily was still in danger. A moment later Ward slammed his other foot into Hunter’s face and Daisy spun, making sure Lily’s face was pressed into her neck and shoulder so she wouldn’t see Jemma on the ground. She burst through the door and into the stairwell. Her initial instinct was to run upward, but a glance up the stairwell told her there was a surge of soldiers rushing down it from higher floors so Daisy dashed down two flights of stairs to the first basement level and ran into the hall, looking for somewhere safe to hide with Lily until the team could get the situation under control. 


	14. It's a Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Forewarning:** Another long one. New Year's Resolution: new story, attempt shorter chapters...........maybe. There's some violence involved but not anywhere near as much as other chapters. OH! And sexy things. There are nsfw sexy things below.   
>  Everything else is what it is in the respite between action chapters <3 <3  
> Enjoy! 
> 
> A dedication of sorts to _Panyan_ : I hope this one doesn't disrupt your sleep like the last one!! ;P
> 
> To Everyone: Thanks, as always for the kudos, comments and feedback!! <3 you guys are the best! I've got a couple comments to reply to and then I'm getting started on the next chap. As always my apologies for spelling/grammatical errors I missed in my haste to finally get this posted for you!! 
> 
> Have a great night!  
> :0)  
> <3 <3 
> 
> \--------------------------------------------------

**_2019 -- April 29th_ **

Jemma was on a mission. Her mission was to retrieve the most god-awful mountainous bowl full of vegan-tofu-vegetable-quinoa filled takeout possible. Daisy had sent her on this mission – all the way across town! – at 9:15 at night, for a place that had a closing time of 9:30pm...for food that involved _tofu_! Daisy had a secret weapon. She had known Jemma was susceptible to her sad puppy dog pleading eyes, but tonight, while she was begging Jemma to go and retrieve this very healthy, very odd dish, she had managed to whip up the saddest, most adorable pleading puppy dog eyes that Jemma had ever seen her produce. She had been absolutely powerless to say no to her. Given her condition, Jemma wasn’t inclined to say no to Daisy anyway, but that was beside the point. This new use of tactical puppy dog eyes was a dangerous addition to Daisy’s arsenal. How was Jemma supposed to build up immunity to something like that?

Jemma had given in almost instantly when the puppy eyes were aimed at her. She had left Elvis in Daisy’s lap and had kissed her before she pulled herself from where they had been snuggled on the couch watching movies. She tugged on her shoes and jacket and had stuffed her wallet and phone into her pockets before she had hurried out into the car. On the way she had spent half of her drive on the phone with the manager from the store and in the end she had bribed the woman, rather desperately after explaining that this was a craving for her pregnant wife and she couldn’t return home without it, to stay and hold the takeout long enough for Jemma to arrive. The takeout dish, something with a name along the lines of some ridiculous pun about an organic goddess, was comprised of all manner of things Jemma was certain she had never seen Daisy eat; kale, quinoa, tofu, edamame, cabbage, some form of dressing and a few other heaps of vegetables. When Daisy had first asked for it, Jemma was sure that she had seen a look of horror in her wife’s eyes before the desire to eat this food took her over.

Normally, according to the menu, this dish would have normally cost an already absurd fifteen dollars. It had cost Jemma an extra fifty dollars – the amount she had promised the manager to make sure the woman waited for her. Jemma didn’t mind spending superfluous money for the cause, but that didn’t stop her from feeling internally cranky about having to shell out so much money for this thing – it was the principle of the matter!

Another half an hour later and Jemma was finally home from her Daisy requested food craving meal. In truth, Jemma would have pretty much asked ‘how high,’ for any of the things Daisy asked her to jump for, much in the same way Daisy had done for her. Frankly, Jemma was amazed that the single embryo that they’d had remaining to implant had taken. Before, when Jemma had been the voluntary incubator, it had taken three tries with multiple embryos each to get one to properly take and succeed in the end. Even though they had both been hopeful, Jemma hadn’t been sure it would actually happen this time around, with one single embryo and the pinch hitter Daisy incubator. She might have even been a little jealous about it in an abstract way since obviously she had been extremely relieved that they didn’t have to go through another upset. She had been cautiously optimistic. Daisy had been her usual self – beat the pessimism away with jokes and sarcasm. It had been a delicate balance until they had confirmation. Now they were just a day shy of officially marking off the start of week eight. Jemma still felt cautiously optimistic. Daisy still kept reassuring her with jokes and little ‘alien fetus’ facts, like she had when Jemma was pregnant with Carter.

It was difficult, keeping herself from feeling an overwhelming well of sadness whenever a comparison or contrast to her pregnancy with Carter cropped up, but Jemma did her best. So far there had been quite a few differences. Notably, Daisy’s morning sickness was a force to be reckoned with. It came at all hours of the day and night, and how! Jemma, on the other hand, had only had a handful of days she hadn’t felt well due to the pregnancy rather than something else. Hormones were another factor much different for Daisy than for Jemma. Jemma had had waves of hormonally charged desire. Daisy seemed not to have an off switch for hers other than when she was puking or sleeping. Jemma wasn’t complaining about that, though. She wasn’t complaining about any of it. They were both lucky that they were even alive, that they were together and that they had been able to bring themselves to brave this adventure again. Even the fear of possibly losing another pregnancy couldn’t trump the happiness she felt whenever she allowed herself to be in the moment rather than the past, knowing that they were finally going to have a family, more than each other and the team - a family of their own.

Jemma let herself into the house and scanned her thumb over the fingerprint and biometric scanner on the security system console by the door to keep the alarm from going off. She shut and locked up the door behind her and the system reset once she did. She started into the living room but didn’t see Daisy. Elvis lazily rolled onto his back along the top of the couch and stretched his paws at all angles to stretch and let out a mew in greeting. Jemma smiled at the cat. “Where’s your mum, hmm?” she asked as she reached out to scratch behind his ears.

“Daisy? Where are you?” Jemma called out after walking over toward the stairs. She paused at the bottom and listened for Daisy to reply on the house wide Marco Polo hunt. Jemma couldn’t help the way her muscles tensed as she waited for some kind of reply.

One of the second floor toilets flushed and she heard a lethargic sounding. “Bathroom,” called out from up there. Jemma’s shoulders relaxed when she received an answer. She detoured to the kitchen and dropped the bag of food on the counter and then grabbed a cup from one of the cabinets. She pressed a few settings on the fridge and then put the cup under the ice maker and filled it halfway up with ice chips. Then she made the trek upstairs, into the master bedroom and, finally, turned into the master bath to find Daisy with her cheek resting against one side of the toilet seat and her eyes closed, the edges of her hair already starting to mat a bit as beads of sweat covered her forehead.

Jemma grimaced as she moved into the room. She leaned over to kiss Daisy’s shoulder on her way by and brushed her fingers through Daisy’s short hair to push it out of her face and behind her ear. “Have you been in here since I left?” she stepped over Daisy’s bent legs and moved to sit on the edge of the tub.

“I’m dying…” Daisy lamented with an exaggerated sigh.

Jemma set the cup of ice chips on the top of the toilet tank and leaned down to get a look at Daisy’s face. She wrinkled her nose and turned the corners of her mouth up. “On the bright side,” she said as she reached out and ran her hand up and down Daisy’s back gently, “It doesn’t look like you’ve broken any blood vessels this time.”

Daisy let out a groan and squeezed her eyes shut tighter. “Give it time, Jem,” she murmured miserably.

Jemma couldn’t help but smirk, if only because she knew this puking was because of the pregnancy and not some other form of illness. “You’re a terrible, patient,” she teased. “Don’t make me fetch Dr. Simmons.”

Daisy let out a sigh. “I’d be okay with that if she’s only wearing her lab coat,” she murmured.

Jemma laughed. “For you? Absolutely,” she reached out and combed her fingers through Daisy’s hair again. “Why don’t we get you into bed? I’ll grab your tofu monstrosity and some water and-,”

At the mention of food, Daisy’s stomach rolled again. Her eyes popped open wide, the color drained immediately from her face and Jemma had just enough time to push her hand through Daisy’s short hair to keep it out of her face as Daisy ducked her head and heaved into the toilet again. Jemma grimaced. A shudder rolled through her spine as she listened to Daisy heave. She waited until Daisy flushed the toilet and set her cheek back down on her folded arm on the seat to stand up so she could grab the rag from the edge of the sink. She turned on the cold water to wet the rag before wringing it out. When she sat back down on the edge of the tub, she gently wiped at the corners of Daisy’s mouth and then flipped the rag over and pressed it along her forehead.

Daisy let out a long sigh. “How much longer do I have to do this?” she asked.

Jemma chuckled. “It’d be cruel to tell you,” she teased as she reached for the cup of ice chips, shaking it as she held it out for Daisy.

Daisy sighed again. She took the cup and gave Jemma a tiny grateful smile. “Thanks,” she murmured as she picked her head up off her arm and moved to sit back against the side of the cabinet beneath the sink. She pulled a chip from the cup and tossed it in her mouth to start crunching on.

“Do you want me to call the doctor?” Jemma asked. “We could ask if there’s anything you can take to ease it?” she suggested.

Daisy shook her head as she chewed on another ice chip. “It’ll pass,” she wasn’t sure why, exactly, since she knew anything the doctor gave her would be safe to take, but she didn’t want to chance taking any medication that might have some kind of adverse reaction. She could handle her stomach issues, for now. Two weeks earlier she had heaved so violently with nothing else in her stomach to come up that the pressure had caused blood vessels in her eyes to burst. For almost a week, Daisy thought she looked like she was slowly turning into a zombie, the whites of her eyes clouded by scary blood red pools. She took full advantage of it and did her best to hide places where people could only see her eyes to scare the hell out of them. So that was a pro at least.

“Want to move into bed?” Jemma offered as her consolation prize suggestion.

Daisy chewed on another piece of ice and nodded. Jemma tossed the wet rag onto the counter next to the sink. She hopped up off of the tub ledge and closed the toilet lid. She held her hands out and helped Daisy up, slipping an arm around her waist a moment until she was steady from the quick dizzy spell the altitude change caused.

“Good?” Jemma asked.

Daisy nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Go ahead, I’ll be out in a minute, I just wanna brush my teeth,” she wrinkled her nose up as she swallowed against the sour taste lingering in the back of her throat.

Jemma nodded and leaned up to kiss her cheek. “Is there anything else you want me to get you?” she asked as she stepped over the threshold and back into the bedroom.

Daisy leaned back from the sink as she was covering her toothbrush with toothpaste. “How ‘bout you in that lab coat?” she wagged her eyebrows a few times before she lifted her toothbrush to start scrubbing her teeth in an effort to get the funky taste out of her mouth.

Jemma let out a snort of laughter and shook her head. “How ‘bout nothing in lieu of lab coat?”

It was a few moments before Daisy replied, after spitting out a mouthful of toothpaste and rinsing her mouth out with water. “I will be sorely disappointed if that was a joke,” She called back. Daisy rinsed her mouth out one last time, cleaned off her toothbrush before she turned off the water and reached for one of the hand towels to dry her hands and wipe her mouth. Flipping the light off, Daisy pulled the door mostly shut behind her as she stepped into the bedroom and turned to see Jemma standing by the edge of their bed with a long throw blanket wrapped around her, bare from the knees down and, presumably, under the blanket as well. Daisy arched her eyebrows as her lips twisted up in amusement.

“What?” Jemma made a face at her. “I don’t have a lab coat at home and it’s cold out here!” She grinned.

Daisy laughed as she crossed toward Jemma, already tugging her sweatshirt off and over her head as she went. She dropped it blindly to the floor then quickly hooked the waistband of her pajama bottoms and stepped out of them before she reached Jemma. As soon as she was close enough she reached a hand out to the side of Jemma’s face near the back of her jaw and neck where her fingers curled into her hair. She snaked an arm around Jemma’s waist, erasing the gap between them to pull her in for a kiss that quite literally made Jemma weak in the knees. She barely had enough time to let go of the blanket before Daisy had pulled her into their bed.

A struggle for dominance of their tumble ensued, each struggling against the other’s well practiced, mind-numbingly blissful offensive attacks - tongues, lips, teeth, fingers all worked feverishly against flesh and nerve to seduce their partner into submission. Jemma struggled because she wanted to roll Daisy over and take charge, to make sure she ended the night feeling much better and much more relaxed than she had been not so long ago because of her any-time-of-day morning sickness. Daisy struggled because she currently had no off switch and her desires were firing on all cylinders for fast and furious release.

Daisy found it difficult to want to relinquish control when Jemma’s thighs were already wrapped around her hips, her back arched to bring her body up to meet Daisy’s in time. Daisy rocked her hips down to grind down against Jemma. The resulting gasp of her name that Jemma let out in a heated burst of air against her cheek did nothing to calm Daisy’s thundering heartbeat. Still, Jemma pushed at her shoulder and attempted to roll her hips to flip them. Daisy pulled Jemma’s hand free from where it was fisted in her hair and grabbed the other from her shoulder to pin them both to the bed. She dropped her head and her lips met Jemma’s rapid pulse point along the side of her neck just as she was trying to protest.

“Hey, you can’t just-,” The words tangled into Jemma’s vocal chords and trailed into a husky moan as her jaw slacked and hung suspended, momentarily blinded by the surge of pleasure that raced through her. Her thighs gripped tighter around Daisy’s waist and she was powerless to stop the snap of her hips, seeking friction and heat. The buck of her hips caused a moan to escape Daisy’s throat. The ripple of a hum it sent over Jemma’s skin caused a pleasant shudder to roll down Jemma’s spine to her core as Daisy’s hands slipped up from her wrists to curl around her hands and entwine their fingers.

“What was that?” Daisy finally teased, pulling her lips from Jemma’s neck and lifting her head enough just to gaze down at Jemma. The end strands of her jaw length hair tickled against Jemma’s cheeks. Daisy had a triumphant grin on her face the moment she saw the way Jemma’s eyes had dilated in the wake of her actions, the way she was panting for shallow gasps of air, seemingly dazed into a haze of lust. Jemma pulled her hands free, but Daisy moved hers back to Jemma’s wrists to make sure they stayed put on the mattress above her head.

Jemma narrowed her eyes and pulled her lips into a challenging smirk. She lifted her hands, not bothering to break them free of Daisy’s grasp on her wrists, and cupped the sides of Daisy’s face. She brought their faces until there was barely any space to be left between them. She watched, waited a moment until Daisy licked her lips and dropped her eyes down to Jemma’s lips to stare before she spoke, “I’m in charge of the fun tonight,” Jemma whispered, her tone husky and thick with desire, teasing with its lingering anticipation as her lips grazed against Daisy’s with each word.

Just as Daisy couldn’t stand the scant gap between them and dropped her lips to capture Jemma’s, Jemma threw her weight and rolled them over until Daisy’s back was on the mattress.

“Cheater,” Daisy’s barely managed to murmur it against Jemma’s lips. Jemma grinned against her mouth. She moved swiftly, before Daisy had a chance to contemplate a counterattack. Her fingers traced down from the sides of Daisy’s face, along her neck, over her clavicle, meeting in the divot were her collarbones connected in the middle. Moving with the barest grazing pressure, she grinned again against Daisy’s lips as she felt the heavy heave of her chest with each impatient shallow pant of breath Daisy tried to grab between each feverishly frantic kiss, eager for more. She used the bare touch of pressure down the middle of Daisy’s chest to the top of her abdomen until, on her pass back up Daisy’s torso, she pressed her hands out and cupped one down over each of her breasts. At the same time, she had been shifting her hips and weight. Just as she pressed her palms down against Daisy’s nipples, she moved to straddle one of Daisy’s legs instead of her hips and pressed her thigh flush against her core, already hot and wet, primed and ready to go.

Daisy’s body lurched, arching off the bed eagerly leaning into Jemma’s every touch. Her lips broke from Jemma’s as her head tipped back with a sharp gasp. Daisy’s fingers were fisted deep into Jemma’s hair and braced against the back of her shoulder as Jemma’s lips found their way across all the well-known pressure points of Daisy’s neck and jaw that always made her thighs quake. Her hands worked, alternating between massaging and rolling over Daisy’s breasts and she took her good old time slowly pressing her hips down to slide her thigh against her core. Daisy’s nails dug into Jemma’s scalp and shoulder blade, sending a shiver of pleasure down Jemma’s spine. Daisy’s hips snapped up against Jemma’s, grinding to ride faster against her thigh in her frantic rush to release as she let out a string of moans dotted between with a call of Jemma’s name and an urgent, “Please…” an undefined plea that hung on a hitched pant of air that puffed into Jemma’s hair.

Jemma’s lips curled into a wicked grin. Her teeth found Daisy’s earlobe and a tremble shook down Daisy’s back. A whine of protest left Daisy’s throat when Jemma’s hands left her chest, trailed her sides and came to rest on Daisy’s hips, stalling their ability to rock against Jemma’s. “Please, what?” She practically purred into Daisy’s ear as Daisy canted her head to angle it against the side of hers.

“Don’t stop…” she pled, breathless and heady, squirming in Jemma’s grasp. Jemma could feel the pump and pull of Daisy’s core muscles against her, seeking any relief they could manage.

Daisy let out a pained whimper of protest when Jemma shifted and moved away from her, moving her hips and leg away. “Shhh,” Jemma pressed a gentle, almost chaste, kiss to Daisy’s lips, but pulled away before Daisy could suck her in for a deeper kiss.

“ _Jemmmm_ ,” Daisy whined as her body writhed, impatient and frustrated.

“Such a terrible patient,” Jemma let out a chuckle after lips met collarbone. She licked and sucked her way down the length of Daisy’s body, taking her time even as Daisy protested and writhed around beneath her. She had just dragged her teeth along the top of her inner thigh when Daisy let out moan. A disgruntled grumble followed it as her hips bucked off the bed of their own accord in reaction.

“You’re a vicious demon,” Daisy grunted. Jemma’s eyes cast up toward her face just as Daisy had thrown her hand up in exasperation to cover her eyes, digging the nails of her other hand deeper into Jemma’s hair and scalp. “I’m sorry unborn child,” she panted, breathless and sarcastic – thoroughly wound up and coiled but kept just teetering on the edge by Jemma’s wickedly slow teasing. Daisy loved it, but _god damn_ , she hated it. It wasn’t that she wasn’t enjoying it, obviously, she just…yeah. “Your other mother is Satan,” Daisy sighed and let out another woeful moan when just the tip of the pad of Jemma’s finger ghosted along the seam between her saturated folds, causing her core muscles to coil and buckle.

Daisy threw her hand from her face and gripped a fistful of the sheets as if she might actually burst apart at the seams if she didn’t. As she watched Daisy’s face, Jemma could see the uncontrolled tremble of her hand around the handful of their sheets. Daisy’s head rose from the bed and she fixed a hungry, predatory glare on her wife.

“Jemma, I swear to - _fuck_!” Just as Daisy had gulped down a breath of air to start her threat, Jemma ducked her head and struck her tongue out, lapping in a single stroke from the bottom of her sex all the way up to the hood before she closed her mouth around it and began to suck, working her tongue between the tuck of folds until she could lap the flat of it along her clit in tandem to the pull of her lips. Daisy’s eyes had clenched and her head had dropped immediately back to the bed, her body arched. Jemma’s fingers traced the rest of the way up Daisy’s inner thigh as her hips snapped up off the bed. They made a few passes, teasing along the wet folds of flesh before she slipped one digit and then another inside. Daisy’s thighs clenched around Jemma as a sequence of unintelligible sounds caught in a strangle in her throat. “Jem,” She rasped out, senses worked over beyond her ability to keep full control of her body.

“ _Please_...” the plea came once again. This time, as Jemma’s fingers worked in rhythm with her mouth, pushing in as deep as her fingers would allow and curling against specific spots she knew would push Daisy further to the edge as she slipped them out and started again, Jem felt the tremor the rumble just slightly over the mattress stemming from Daisy’s hand gripped into the sheets. Jemma slipped a third digit in on her next stroke into Daisy, keeping time as best as she could with the wild unrestrained buck of Daisy’s hips. Jemma had wrapped her free arm around Daisy’s thigh to try and wrestle some control over the pitch of her hips but when she felt the tremor along the bed, she let go of Daisy’s hip and blindly slipped her hand along the bed until it reach Daisy’s hand and clamped down over top of it. With a flip of her wrist, Daisy released her grip on the sheets, entwined her fingers with Jemma’s and clamped a fierce grip onto her hand. Moments later, Jemma felt Daisy suddenly go rigid for just one small fraction of a moment, she was suspended on the edge. Jemma’s fingers rocked into her, she let out a rumble of a moan against Daisy as she sucked harder at her core, pulling her that last inch over the edge.

With a sharp series of cries, Daisy crashed over the edge. Her muscles spasmed and cramped at uncontrollable intervals from her core down to her toes and cascading up her spine to the top of her head. Her thighs squeezed, clenching at Jemma’s shoulders and the sides of her head, her muscles clamped down around Jemma’s fingers and pulsed against them, nails dug deeper into her scalp and the back of her other hand, hips and body rocked, undulating with each flood of pleasure Jemma coaxed from her until her muscles simply stalled and sunk her back into the mattress. Daisy was left trembling, struggling to catch her breath, coated in a sheen of sweat. She felt dizzy and weak in the wake of the overwhelming euphoria, relaxed, though she couldn’t bring her heart rate under control. Words were impossible, as was any form of major movement.

Jemma gently slipped her fingers free and unwound her hand carefully from Daisy’s. She made a slow path full of gentle kisses and caresses soothing over still trembling muscles, up the length of Daisy’s torso, pausing to spare a few extra kisses and quiet murmurs against the very slight, barely there yet bump of her belly. Daisy couldn’t pick her head up, but her fingers curled in Jemma’s hair and her lips curved up into a smile as she heard it and felt the lingering pause. Jemma’s next pause was to place a lingering kiss against Daisy’s chest just over her heart. She settled next to Daisy with a kiss to the corner of her mouth, reaching out to tuck some of her unruly, damp strands of hair behind her ear before letting her fingers trace along the contours of her face. “Alright?” she asked.

Daisy let out a shaking exhale as she rolled onto her side and shifted to curl up into Jemma’s embrace, twisting their legs into a jumble of limbs and settling easily together. She brought her lips to Jemma’s in a long, sweet kiss before she set her head back down and curled up against Jemma, tucking her head into the crook of her neck and shoulder. “Perfect,” Daisy answered, tone soft but thick, still recovering. A quiver ran through her every so often. Jemma reached for the covers and tugged them free so she could wrap them both up, pressed tight together, wrapping her arms around Daisy to pull her closer. Her fingers combed through Daisy’s hair and traced random patterns along her back.

“Yeah?” Jemma whispered, turning her head down to kiss the top of Daisy’s as Daisy’s arms circled her middle.

“Mhm…” Daisy hummed. Her lips pressed against the side of Jemma’s neck. “All your fault,” she murmured, closing her eyes against the steady feel of Jemma’s fingers, through her hair and along her back.

Jemma smiled. “Do you want me to get your food for you?” She asked. “Some water? Pie?” she teased.

Daisy chuckled at first but then cringed and let out a groan at the mention of pie. “No, no pie,” She shook her head against Jemma’s shoulder. “In a minute we’ll move, and I'll turn your muscles to jelly in retribution...right now, just...stay,” she nuzzled into the crook of Jemma’s neck and pressed a random kiss against her skin.

“You’re the boss,” Jemma teased and dropped one more kiss to the top of her head.

Daisy let out a chuckle. “Like the sound a that…” She teased and let out a content sigh.

Jemma laughed. “Daisy, I love you,” Jemma whispered in the lull of silence between them. She felt the curl of Daisy’s lips against her neck as she smiled.

“Yeahhhh…” she drew the word out. “You’re not half bad yourself,” she teased, grinning broader into the crook of Jemma’s shoulder when she laughed. “I love you too, Jem.”

“Perfect.”

\---

**_2019 -- May 12th_ **

“Jemma…” Fitz had called Jemma’s name no less than four times. “Earth to Jemmaaaaaaaa - hellooooo, is there anyone in there??” He was practically singing out her name, waving his hands in front of her face.

Jemma had sat down at a microscope in the lab to check over a slide’s contents that Fitz wanted her opinion on. Moments after sitting down and leaning over to peer through the double lenses, Jemma’s mind had wandered away. it was entirely unlike her. Sure, it had happened a few times when she was pregnant, annnnd maybe a time or two when she and Daisy had first started dating and had found themselves holed up in their room for a long night or two of fun. This was not the first time in the last month that Jemma had zoned out and then started nodding off in the lab. Her thighs felt like weak, jiggly pectin filled masses - hardly something with the stability necessary to stand on her feet and work all day. She had tried to take mental stock of every muscle group that felt similar - used, spongy and coagulated. There wasn’t a single one that didn’t feel worn out and overextended. Which turned out to be exactly why Jemma had sort of nodded off...

"SIMMONS!!!!!" Bobbi had come into the lab to collect a report from Fitz only to witness his attempts to call her attention. With a slight smirk, she had walked up behind Jemma and dropped a binder loudly on the floor as she shouted her name.

"Hm?! What?!" Jemma bolted up and jumped from her seat at the table. "I'm awake! What were you saying, Fitz??" She turned a circle and came face to face with Fitz and Bobbi listing slightly toward each other's sides as they snickered at her. Jemma frowned.

"I've never seen you fall asleep at a station before..." Fitz marveled.

"I had a very," Jemma paused and stifled a yawn into the back of a glove covered hand. "Very long night..." She pushed her hair out of her face behind her ear, and straightened out her shirt and lab coat, having forgotten that she had left her hair down for a reason this morning.

Bobbi let out a snort of laughter and reached out to turn down the edge of the collar of the lab coat. "Uh huh...long night with the insatiable wonder, you mean?" She teased.  
Jemma blushed a furiously deep shade of crimson as Fitz let out a bark of laughter. She hastily fixed her collar and then ruffled her hair about again to cover the back edge of her neck and the remnants of a reddish purple round of tooth marks that were back there. The memory of what caused Daisy to bite down so hard on her in that moment last night temporarily distracted her from her embarrassment but just barely.

Fitz laughed again and Bobbi struggled to keep a straight face. “Simmons, there are worse ways to be run ragged,” Bobbi pointed out. Fitz threw his head back and laughed again. Jemma’s blush raced down to spread from her cheeks all the way down to her neck. She shifted on her feet for a moment and crossed her arms indignantly. Her expression faltered a moment later when she grimaced at all the movements her overworked muscles were making.

Bobbi coughed and cleared her throat. She elbowed Fitz as he grabbed his stomach and laughed. “Jemma…” she began to say, attempting to sound sympathetic somehow.

“It’s not funny,” Jemma lamented with a sigh as she dropped back onto the stool she had been on. Her shoulders hung and she pulled her gloves off of her hands, tossing them into the trash before she reached up to tiredly rub her eyes.

Fitz had a case of the giggles from all of this. Jemma was exhausted from being oversexed by her pregnant wife. There was no universe where that sentence wasn’t entirely hilarious. Bobbi elbowed him in the ribs again. “Take a break,” She scolded him. Fitz put his hands up in innocence and backed from the room. Bobbi stepped closer to Jemma and reached out to slip her arm around her shoulder. “Hey, it’s just a phase right?” She wasn’t sure it was a phase to complain about but Jemma did look like she was going to keel over at any moment. She tipped the corners of her mouth up into a smile. “Just think - in, what? Six more months or so...you’re going to miss having all the free time to yourselves to go at it til you can’t move,” She chuckled.

Jemma grimaced as she blushed and hung her head. She couldn’t help it, no matter how comfortable she should have been with this topic, she simply couldn’t help the flush in her cheeks, or the pull in her core as her mind wandered to the previous night’s activities once again.

“Ohhhhhkay, sex machine - mind out of the gutter there,” Bobbi teased gently with a little wink. “I’m here to pick up a report from Fitz, but I sent him packing. So why don’t you help me find that report, I’ll drop it off to Coulson and then we’ll skip out for lunch and give you a recharge - whattaya say?” She arched her eyebrows slightly.

Jemma fixed Bobbi with a sleepy, grateful smile. “Thanks, Bobbi,” she said before she stood up to peel her lab coat off. “I think the report’s in Fitz’s outbox,” She headed for the desk and rummaged around, leaving things messy purposefully to get Fitz back for laughing at her before she and Bobbi left the lab to drop off the report and leave the base for a lunch breather.

\---

Though the lunch break had been a good recharge, by the time Jemma left the base to head home, she felt exhausted again. She wasn’t even sure how she had managed to drive all the way home without nodding off. Once she had pulled into the driveway and cut the engine, she gave herself one last moment to breathe before she climbed out of the car to head inside. She let herself in and pressed her thumb to the alarm sensor. She shut and locked the door behind her and then crouched down to greet Elvis, who had come running to greet her by walking a figure eight between her feet. “Did you have a good day with Mama all to yourself?” She asked the cat as she scratched his favorite spot behind his ears and chuckled at the way he wiggled his ears happily as he purred in response. Jemma smiled.

Daisy had stayed home. Most of her work could be done from the office in their house and since she wasn’t allowed in the field - per Jemma’s orders, buttttttt also something she was simultaneously okay with because of her want to protect the baby and loathed because she felt stir crazy - she was down with the whole idea. This morning when they had woken up, Daisy had followed Jemma into the shower before making breakfast for them while Jemma finished getting ready. Daisy had made it two bites into her pancakes before the first wave of morning sickness hit her. She had kissed Jemma on the cheek on her rush by to get to the bathroom. It had been one of four different times throughout the day - often in the middle of working on something time sensitive - that she had had to run for the bathroom because of the morning sickness.

After the last one in the afternoon, she had finally finished a task Coulson had asked her to do and sent it over to him before she went to lay down in the hopes of quelling her stomach. She had given her stomach a couple of gentle strokes and warned the baby that s/he was going to need to let her keep some food down at some point or s/he was never going to grow past her alien fetus stage. She had closed her eyes and moments later, the alarm that she had set to let her know that she needed to start cooking dinner so it would be ready by the time Jemma came home went off. As she dragged herself down to the kitchen, she spotted a text message on her phone from Bobbi.

**Bobbi:** _Hey, Shaky - give your wife a break tonight, huh? She fell asleep while staring into a microscope today._

**Daisy:** _...Did she really?_

**Bobbi:** _Yup. Let her get some rest - you’ll both be happier in the end ;)_

**Daisy:** _Thanks for the head’s up, Stretch_

**Bobbi:** _No sweat! Take it easy! <3_

Daisy had altered her plans to just throw a frozen pizza in the oven for dinner. By the time Jemma had entered the house and Daisy had made them a full sit down dinner without burning the house down or ruining any of the food; tuna steaks with a lemon, yogurt, dill and caper sauce, baked in the oven along with a mix of roasted vegetables and roasted potato wedges. Full plates of food and bowls of salad were on the table with a couple of glasses of water and a glass of wine set out at Jemma’s usual seat. She grinned as she listened to Jemma talk to the cat. A moment after she heard it she counted down from three in her head, 3, 2, 1, and…

“Daisy?” Jemma called when she stood up from petting the cat. She kicked out of her shoes and hung her coat up in the hall closet.

Daisy stepped out of the dining room and into the foyer. “Hey,” She said with a smile, leaning against the frame of the archway that led into the dining room. Admittedly, when they had first bought the house, Daisy had been sure that Jemma would hate living away from the base and would, at some point, insist on moving back. She had thought this would happen after they had glued themselves back together after Carter. Honestly, she was more than happy to have the space to themselves and the general peace and quiet solitude they had available to them with this house set up. It was home. It was _their_ home. Her eyes roamed her wife from foot to face. She almost frowned when she spotted the sleepy look in her eyes and the dark circles that framed them.

“Hey, yourself,” Despite her exhaustion, there was a warm, content smile on her face that reached her sleepy eyes as he crossed over to where Daisy stood. “I have no idea what you’ve made, but it smells delici-,” Her own stomach cut her off with a grumble to speak for her.

Daisy chuckled and reached out for Jemma’s waist, pulled her over for a lengthy kiss. Jemma’s hands came to rest along her shoulders. She was actually surprised when Daisy ended the kiss much sooner than she normally would have. Jemma had been half expecting to be dragged to the couch or up to the bedroom, in fact, bypassing dinner completely, after having been apart all day.

“C’mon, let’s get you fed before your stomach revolts worse than mine,” Daisy teased. She stole one more kiss before she slipped her arm around Jemma’s waist and spun with her to head into the dining room and only let go so she could pull Jemma’s chair out for her.

Jemma smiled and, just for that, leaned up to kiss Daisy quickly before settling into her seat as Daisy pushed the chair in and explained what everything on her plate was. Jemma stared at everything, impressed but also wary. She wondered if she’d missed some special occasion of some kind in her exhaustion. “This...looks positively wonderful,” she praised, picking up her knife and fork as she smiled at Daisy. “What’s the occasion?” She arched her right eyebrow up.

Daisy grinned. “No occasion. Just because.” She said. “My original plan was just to throw a frozen pizza in the oven,” She shrugged. “We had all of this and I thought it would be nice to have an actual meal together…” She smiled.

Jemma dug in for a first bite and sighed as she chewed. “Where did you even learn to...do all of this?” She asked as she dug in a little more, eager to fill her stomach with the tasty, well-prepared meal.

“The internet is a wondrous place,” Daisy grinned as she dug into her own plate while they traded stories about their days. When the meal was done, Jemma tried to start cleaning up the dishes, but Daisy did most of the work, shooing her away so she could put away leftovers and load up the dishwasher. Once everything was done, she walked back over to the table and held her hands out. “Shall we adjourn to the bedroom?” She had to admit that the question sounded more than a bit suggestive. She also had to admit that she realized Jemma looked just a tiny bit hesitant before she smiled and took Daisy’s hands.

With a small smirk, Daisy pulled her to her feet and wrapped an arm around her waist. Jemma’s head absently dropped to Daisy’s shoulder as Daisy walked them toward the stairs. One of Jemma’s arms wrapped around Daisy’s middle, her other hand went to rest against Daisy’s abdomen. Daisy smiled and turned her head to kiss the top of Jemma’s. She remembered how easy it was to fall into constantly wanting to be in contact with Jemma and the baby when she was pregnant. Daisy combed her fingers through Jemma’s hair as they ascended the stairs and walked down the hall to the master bedroom. She didn’t need to, but Daisy pushed the door shut most of the way behind them.

Jemma picked her head up and forced herself not to yawn just before Daisy dipped her head and caught her in a kiss. She broke away and gave them both enough time to slip into some comfortable pajamas. She crossed, then, to Jemma and pulled her into another kiss, walking them over to the bed until the backs of Jemma’s legs hit the edge of it and then she broke the kiss.

“Go on,” Daisy grinned. “To bed with you,” she teased tilting her head to the bed and narrowing her eyes at Jemma. There was a lopsided smirk on her lips, mostly because she knew what Jemma was going to think she meant.

“Daisy, we-,”

“Ah-ah,” Daisy shook her head. “Marching orders have been given, Mrs. Simmons,” She instructed in a firm tone that proved she meant business. She leaned over, first to grab the covers and pull them back and then to kiss Jemma again. She waited until Jemma had climbed into bed and then she reached to the lamp on the night table and turned it off. “Good,” She grinned at Jemma and climbed in with her. She reached out to tuck some of Jemma’s hair behind her ear. She leaned their foreheads together and bumped their noses. She gave Jemma a chaste kiss and smiled. “Now,” She said, waiting for Jemma’s eyes to meet hers. “Go to sleep,” She beamed a grin at Jemma.

Jemma’s eyebrows arched up her forehead and she blinked at Daisy, feeling skeptical. “Go...to sleep?”

Daisy chuckled. “Yes,” She kissed Jemma again but made sure not to let it linger too long to avoid winding herself up. She combed her fingers through Jemma’s hair and ran her palm in circles between her shoulder blades. “Go to sleep,” Daisy said as Jemma sighed and curled up in Daisy’s arms. “I talked to Coulson earlier and convinced him that I needed your help tomorrow, so, expect to be stuck curled up in this bed with me _at least_ until noon.” She added, dropping a kiss to the top of Jemma’s head.

Jemma wasn’t sure what had brought about this little respite, but there was a part of her that almost could have cried with relief to just have a night solely dedicated to contently sleeping curled up in bed with her wife. And on top of it, they would get to sleep in!

“Oh!” Daisy said suddenly. She kissed Jemma’s forehead and then leaned back and rolled just her top half, stretching to reach for the nightstand. “Almost forgot. I have something for you,” She pulled the top drawer open and pulled out a flat, square box, wrapped up in shiny red wrapping paper with a bow stuck on top. Though the elaborate dinner and the night in relaxing and simply resting together had been a bit more impromptu after texting with Bobbi, this gift had been something Daisy had gotten a couple of weeks earlier in preparation for today specifically.

Jemma’s eyebrows arched as Daisy rolled back to her and held the gift out. Her brow furrowed slightly as she leaned to prop herself on her elbow and took the box from Daisy. “…What’s this for?” She asked as Daisy propped herself on her elbow and rested the side of her head against her hand, watching Jemma with a small smile on her lips.

“Open it,” Daisy encouraged as her answer.

Jemma turned her eyes to the box, she pulled the paper and bow off of it and Daisy tossed that over her shoulder for now to throw away later. Jemma could tell the box contained some form of jewelry but she was wholly unprepared for what lay inside. There was a white gold necklace inside the box. Hanging from it was a round pendant with a very ornately carved tree inside it. There were two rings around the pendant. The first one held inscriptions of her name and Daisy’s name at the bottom of the ring, curving from left to right along it. The outer ring had two names on it but they were skewed higher on the left side, leaving space to even it out by adding another name. As soon as she read the names, she knew what Daisy had done, they were Carter and Elvis. The space left behind was for the as of yet unnamed baby. It was a family tree.

“Daisy…” Jemma wasn’t even sure what to say. There were tears welled in her eyes as she lifted them from the necklace to look at Daisy. “It’s…beautiful,” She traced the tip of her finger along the names.

Daisy smiled, though there was concern in her eyes as she saw the tears in Jemma’s. She leaned forward and kissed Jemma’s forehead. “Happy Mother’s Day,” She said when she leaned back. Jemma stared at her, frozen for a moment at the sound of that. Daisy dropped her eyes to the necklace as Jemma held it. “I didn’t want to wait until next year to give it to you, so,” She shrugged one of her shoulders, “I had them leave room until we have a name picked out for her,” She said.

Jemma’s lips twisted slightly. “ _Her_?” She asked almost out of reflex.

Daisy grinned. “Or him,” she said just before Jemma leaned over to kiss her. “Like it?” she asked when their kiss broke, just to make sure she hadn’t upset Jemma too much after having known that Jemma was already in a bit of an exhausted state to begin with.

“It’s wonderful,” Jemma answered with a sniffle as she turned her eyes back to the necklace. Daisy gently wiped her cheek off. “Thank you,” She kissed Daisy again before she pulled the necklace from its box. The chain for it was long to let the pendant hang down low. Without unclasping it, Jemma slipped the chain over her head and smiled at the way gravity more or less left it hanging directly over her heart. Daisy took the box and reached behind her to set it on the nightstand while Jemma looked down at the pendent and ran her fingers over it again.

When she rolled back to face Jemma again, Jemma tucked the necklace into the collar of her shirt and reached out to pull Daisy in for a hug. She wrapped her arms around Daisy’s middle and pressed her face into the crook of her neck and collar. “You do know that I love you madly…right?” she asked.

Daisy grinned brightly. “I know you do,” She assured, pressing a kiss to the side of Jemma’s head as she pulled her in for a tight embrace. “Sometimes to a fault when I’m careless and selfish,” she added teasingly.

Jemma pulled her head back to look at Daisy, alarm in her eyes. “No, no, that’s not what I-”

Daisy chuckled and silenced her with another kiss. “Jem...I’m joking,” She assured. “I love you,” she added. “And I’m sorry for my...ah...voracious hormonally induced urges…?” she scrunched her eyes a moment and then cracked them open at Jemma, who leaned in and stole a few sweet little kisses before she tucked her head back down under Daisy’s chin, closed her eyes and exhaled a relaxed sigh. She fell asleep in minutes listening to Daisy’s quiet love laced little murmurs against her ear and the steady rhythm of both of Daisy’s heartbeat in her ear and her hand as it ran along her back.

\---

**_2019 – July 2nd_ **

Daisy was officially seventeen weeks pregnant. They had twenty-three left to go. Three more weeks and they would be at the halfway point. The all-day-every-day morning sickness had subsided, though it still gave her grief every other day or so. Her food cravings consisted mostly of health food. It was bizarre and very unlike Daisy. Granted, Daisy didn’t always eat food that was bad for her, necessarily but she had trouble eating even her favorite foods. Like pizza. Part of Daisy was _dying_ to devour a pizza. A larger part of her – the nectarine sized alien fetus part of her in particular – felt revolted at the very idea of ingesting even a bite of pizza and preferred to make her eat vegetables…and kale. And fruit. She didn’t mind the fruit so much. She had become well acquainted with the juicer that Coulson had given them as a housewarming gift when they had moved in and had previously been collecting dust. She felt stir crazy and useless since she couldn’t keep up her normal job duties since she was out of the field. Half the time, she also felt like everyone was treating her like a toddler, trying to find ‘work’ for her to do, anything at all, to keep her occupied since she couldn’t be of actual physical use.

Despite her stir craziness, Daisy was, in a word, happy. She and Jemma had decided to bring back the Babymoon. They were lying out on loungers on a beach on an island in the Caribbean, covered in sunscreen as the warm sun beat down on them. Life was good. And Daisy was nodding off behind her sunglasses. A kiss to her shoulder brought her back to the conscious world with a sharp inhale of air and a slight arch of her back. Her eyebrows arched slightly as she yawned and stretched, turning her head to look over at Jemma. Jemma had been laying on her stomach after having spent an hour or so reading some science journal or other. “Hey,” Daisy stifled the yawn into the back of her hand.

Jemma smiled. “Tired?” She asked.

Daisy nodded. “Who knew lying on a beach all day was so exhausting?” She quipped.

Jemma chuckled. She rolled over and sat up, tossing her feet over into the sand between their lounge chairs. “Why don’t we head up and shower now? We can take a nap before dinner,” she said.

Daisy almost didn’t even want to move from the lounger. The pull of laying down for a nap with Jemma, though, was much stronger than the urge to let the sun continue to slowly bake her even if it felt nice. “Hmmm,” She sat up and turned to face Jemma. “Sounds comfy,” she leaned over to steal a kiss, which turned into three more before Jemma pulled back and kissed the tip of her nose.

“Save it for the shower,” she teased, giving Daisy a wink. They gathered their things, most of them stuffed into the beach bag Jemma had brought along and insisted on carrying instead of Daisy. Arm in arm, they walked back up the beach and to the hotel, stopping to rinse the sand off of their legs at the small patio entrance. They stepped into their sandals and made their way back up to their hotel suite. Jemma had just enough time to drop the beach bag after locking the door before Daisy had swept her up into a kiss. By the time they had reached the shower, their sandals had been kicked off, sunglasses tossed aside and their sandy swimsuits had been carelessly tossed piece by piece in a trail that led from the door into the bathroom. Jemma was beginning to wonder how either of them ever actually wound up clean after a joint shower, but they managed to clean up from the sand and sunscreen before neither of them could keep their hands and mouths to themselves.

They cleared the shower after turning off the water, dried off as much as possible before collapsing into bed, happily exhausted with the alarm set to give them enough time to get dressed so they could make their dinner reservations. It was a nice little stroll from the hotel to get to the quaint little restaurant Jemma had made reservations for them tonight to celebrate Daisy’s birthday. They sat tucked together at a small candlelit table in a quiet corner by the back windows that afforded them both an amazing view of the sunset and spent a few hours taking their time, enjoying their meal together, talking and laughing about stories from the past and different memories – shared and solo alike. When it was finally time to head back, they strolled, sandals in hand, arms looped around each other’s waists, along the beach, lit by the lights of the hotels lining the shore as the breeze kicked up the ends of their dresses around their knees.

It was peaceful, perfect. Everything seemed like it had fallen perfectly into place, at least for the time being. They had been through some very heavy, intense…terrible things, sure. Daisy wasn’t the kind of person who tried to erase what she had been through. Well, okay, she maybe literally erased traces of herself from the internet but that had been a long time ago and was done in order to protect herself from things like, y’know, prison and was completely different. They rinsed off their feet and made it back up to their room. Daisy went straight for the bed, stopping by the bureau only to pull her dress up and over her head and peel herself out of her underthings before she was under the covers and curled up on her side with a happy sigh. Jemma chuckled when she had turned around from locking the door and witness the clothes sailing to the floor and Daisy sliding into the large bed. She couldn’t keep the sappy smile from her face as she watched Daisy burrow into the pillows, her tanned skin contrasting the crisp white sheets of the bed.

Jemma set her sandals down near the bureau. She pulled off her earrings and put them in her jewelry bag and then slipped out of her clothes. Daisy was watching her through half lidded sleepy eyes but she was grinning by the time the mattress behind her dipped as Jemma climbed under the covers and settled behind her. Jemma’s arm slipped under Daisy’s head and neck under the pillows. Her fingers entwined with Daisy’s when her hand bumped into hers under there. Her arm encircled Daisy’s side and her palm came to rest against the curve of Daisy’s rounded baby bump. She kissed Daisy’s shoulder as Daisy snuggled back against her. It was interesting, the role reversals involved in experiencing the pregnancy this time. Daisy laid her hand down against the one Jemma had on her stomach and curled their fingers together. 

It was in the stillness, just before sleep had fully claimed Daisy, that she felt it. A flutter in her belly that made her stomach turnover. With a sharply inhaled gasp, Daisy shot up in bed. Jemma had the unfortunate luck of having mastered the skill of instantly releasing Daisy whenever she bolted, worried she might hinder a race to the bathroom with the morning sickness struck. She had let go of Daisy’s stomach and her hand under the pillow as soon as her brain had registered the movement, before her eyes were even fully open. Daisy, however, was still in bed, sitting up and staring down at her stomach as her hands pressed against it. Her face was a mixture of confusion and...Jemma wasn’t sure what. 

“What is it?” Jemma sat up and pressed her hand along Daisy’s back. “Are you in pain?” She asked. “I’ll call Doctor Terrell-,” 

Jemma had started to move from the bed, but Daisy reached back and grabbed onto her arm quickly. “No - it’s okay!” She said before she let out a shaky breath. She dropped her eyes to her stomach again. “It’s okay, I just…” She licked her lips and stared, as if she could mentally will it to happen again. “She moved,” she whispered. 

Jemma exhaled a sigh as her shoulders fell in relief. “Geez...don’t scare me like that,” She said before she chuckled. She leaned over and kissed the side of Daisy’s head. Daisy leaned into her. "It's cute that you want a girl," Jemma whispered. Daisy looked over at her, brow furrowed. " _She_?" She teased.

Even in the dark Jemma could see the little flush that filled Daisy's cheeks. She leaned further into Jemma's side and brought her head to rest on her shoulder. Jemma leaned her head down against the top of Daisy’s "Or he," Daisy murmured. "I don't have a preference either way, as long as we get to meet them." They both fell quiet in the wake of Daisy's words. 

"Remember when you asked me what it felt like?" Jemma did her best to keep the question from making her too overly sad. This was not a sad moment. It was happy and it was worth having to vividly remember the sad, lost moments of their son in order to be able to see the look on Daisy’s face while she wondered if hers had looked at all similar the first time she had felt Carter move. 

Daisy nodded against her shoulder as Jemma ran her hand along her arm. "Yeah," she confirmed. "I asked you what it felt like."

Jemma nodded. She turned her head and kissed the top of Daisy’s again. "What do you think? Was my answer right?" She asked. 

Daisy picked her head up. "Hm..." There was a slightly devious smile on her lips. "I dunno...might have to experience it again..." She said. She leaned over and stole a long lingering kiss. She brought their foreheads together after breaking the kiss and whispered. "Jury's still out - waiting for a comparison flutter," she looked down at her stomach and wondered if she had actually imagined that first flutter. 

"C'mere," Jemma nodded toward the pillow and pulled Daisy back down to the bed. She pulled the covers back over them and wrapped herself back around Daisy. "When it first started with Carter," she said. "He would wait til I was completely still and usually relaxed. I think he was trying to make sure his home still worked." She said as she pressed a kiss to Daisy's shoulder. She moved her hand and pressed her palm back down against Daisy’s belly. "Otherwise, he liked to do...I don't know...somersaults whenever your hand, or face, suddenly pressed against the bump." Eventually, after the point that Daisy could feel the kicks and thumps, sometimes they would happen when Daisy walked into the room and spoke. 

Jemma felt Daisy’s abdomen tighten and jump after a moment. She waited without speaking and Daisy snickered, confirming that it had happened again.  
Jemma lifted her head and leaned over to get a look at Daisy’s face. There were tears beginning to well in her eyes and a smile stretched across her lips. “What’s it feel like?” She asked in a whisper. 

Daisy laughed as the muscles under Jemma’s fingers twitched again. “Exactly like you said,” She lifted her head and kissed Jemma a few times. Jemma settled her head back down on the pillow behind Daisy’s. Daisy nuzzled back into her embrace and they laid in silence. Every so often, Jemma kissed the back of Daisy’s head or shoulder. She moved her fingers along Daisy’s baby bump. Her heart raced every time Daisy expelled a little chuckle when a flutter occurred. 

“Happy Birthday, Daisy,” Jemma said when they were finally both lulled into a comfortable silence, relaxed and sleepy - drunk on happiness. “I love you,” She kissed the spot behind Daisy’s ear. 

Daisy squeezed Jemma’s hand as both rested on her stomach. “I love you,” She echoed. “Best day ever.” She added with a sigh, letting it out before she could stop herself. 

“You’ve certainly had a good lot of them over all,” Jemma mused. There were also a lot of worst days ever. Jemma didn’t need to say that, though. 

“Only when I’m with you,” Daisy said. 

Jemma grinned and kissed her jaw. “I love it when you’re sappy,” She teased. 

“I love it when you’re happy,” Daisy told her. 

“Only when I’m with you,” Jemma used her own comment back on her. Daisy leaned back into Jemma and Jemma kissed the back of her shoulder, settling in to let sleep claim them. 

\---

**_2019 -- August 21st_ **

“What in the bloody hell is _wrong_ with you?!” Jemma shouted, aghast as she tried to push Fitz out of her way to get to the containment room’s door in the corner. 

Fitz held his ground and reached out to stop Jemma by her upper arms. “Jemma, wait-,” He cut off when she roughly shoved his arms away. 

“You can’t just shove my family in a containment pod because you panicked, Fitz!” She snapped at him. 

“You don’t understand, she-,” Fitz tried to block her path again and this time, Jemma forcefully shoved him aside. 

“Don’t try and stop me again!” She warned, glaring at him with a deep frown on her face to clearly show him exactly how betrayed she felt by Fitz’s actions - he had locked Daisy in the containment room! Because of a fucking mood swing! The nerve of it made her livid. 

“She _asked_ me to do it!” Fitz defended himself. He rushed back to Jemma’s side as she reached the door and tried to make his case. “She knew she couldn’t control it with the mood swing and she told me to lock her in! You can’t go in, Jem, you could get hurt!” 

“So could they!” Jemma smacked Fitz’s hand away from her arm and went back to tapping out the codes on the touchscreen. She let herself into the room ignoring Fitz’s continued protests and let the door shut and lock behind her as soon as she was inside the nauseatingly white room with Daisy. She tried to brace her feet to keep them from falling out from under her as the floor rumbled beneath them. What scarce bits of furniture were in the room were rocking about the floor. One of the large monitors mounted on the wall had already fallen off and crashed to the ground and the other one was dangerously close to doing the same. Daisy was in one of the corners, as far away from any objects as she could be, seated on the floor with her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped around them. She was breathing heavily, in a manner meant to try and calm herself down. 

Jemma made her way over. She knelt down in front of Daisy and reached out, one hand to her shoulder and arm and the other to stroke through her hair. “Daisy,” She said, her voice much calmer than when she had been outside the room with Fitz. 

Daisy’s head snapped up. Her face was red and it was clear she had been crying. Her eyes were wide behind the tears, alarmed that anyone would rush into the room with her. “You shouldn’t...be in here,” She said between sniffles. 

“Are you hurt?” Jemma ignored the sentiment that she shouldn’t be right at Daisy’s side when something major was happening to her. 

Daisy shook her head. Her shoulders shook as she continued to cry, overly upset and simply unable to bring her emotions under control. Jemma was barely keeping herself steady kneeling in front of her. “Y’should l-leave til it...stops,” Daisy sniffled, her voice cracking as she spoke. 

“I’m staying right here with you,” Jemma insisted, which in turn only made Daisy cry more. She moved next to Daisy and pulled her over into her arms, almost into her lap. “What happened?” She asked, doing her best to ignore the flickering lights, the sound of the couch, recliner and the bed in one of the other corners as they scraped and bounced, slamming against the floor. 

Daisy sniffled. “I-I wanted a candy bar,” She lamented, almost wailing as she said it. 

Jemma blinked. “Okay,” she said as she stroked Daisy’s hair. “We can get you a candy bar - what kind of candy bar do you want?” 

“I had one,” She started crying even harder then. Finally, the large computer monitor crashed to the floor and made Jemma jump in surprise. When she turned back to Daisy, Daisy’s bottom lip was protruding out from the top and was shaking almost as much as the room. Her cheeks were soaked in tear streaks. “I took one bite and...and…” she started to say. Jemma arched her eyebrows as she waited for Daisy to continue. “It had _peanuts_ in it!!” She wailed before her face was burrowed into Jemma’s neck and she was outright sobbing. Jemma was reminded of the time she had begged Daisy to make a giant bowl of popcorn for some movie or other they were going to settle in and watch...and she had decided that Daisy had mixed in the wrong amount of butter and salt. She had literally flipped the bowl over and sobbed about it for almost forty-five minutes while Daisy was caught between trying to comfort her, wanting to laugh at her and needing to clean up the mess. 

“How terrible,” Jemma said as she rubbed her hand up and down Daisy’s arm and combed her fingers through her hair. “What kind of maniac puts peanuts in candy bars?” She asked. 

“I _knowwwwww_!” Daisy wailed against Jemma’s neck, wracked with loud uncontrollable sobs. 

Jemma kissed the top of her head. “They very nearly could murder people, letting operations like that exist,” she asserted as Daisy sniffled. “Someone should put a stop to this before there are any serious repercussions…” 

For a long time, Jemma sat and held onto Daisy as the room’s shaking slowly began to ease up. She sniffled repeatedly but the tears began to stall and the sobs stopped cutting into her words. Though she had known it had been a mood swing and, as soon as she had realized she wasn’t going to be able to control her absurd reaction to her candy bar she had told Fitz to lock her into the containment room to make sure she didn’t bring the entire base crumbling to the ground around her; Daisy still felt extremely embarrassed when it had finally passed. Jemma didn’t say a thing, just held onto her, stroked her hair, kissed her head and rubbed her arm and back while she occasionally let out an assurance that everything was alright and that she loved her. 

“Can I take you home?” Jemma asked after they had been in there for an indeterminable amount of time, though Jemma thought it had to be at least an hour. 

Daisy hesitated. She shook her head as her muscles tensed. “No,” she shook her head against Jemma’s shoulder again. “I don’t know what’ll happen there if I get out of hand again,” She sniffled. 

Jemma frowned. “Daisy,” she said gently. “We have to go home at some point…” She reasoned. “You’ve had mood swings there before, already.” She pointed out.

“It won’t be safe for you,” Daisy frowned. 

Jemma fell silent as she tried to figure out some way to compromise on this. She kissed the top of Daisy’s head. “Okay...compromise. We’ll ask Coulson to authorize placing one of the portable containment pods in the garage. We can go home and if anything happens to make you feel wonky...we can spend the night camping in there like we’re on vacation?” 

It took some more convincing but Daisy eventually agreed to the deal. Jemma was actually just glad this had happened as far into the pregnancy as it did. Most of Daisy’s mood swings so far had been fleeting. Before they left, Daisy did make Jemma apologize to Fitz, though, since Fitz had been honest when he said that Daisy had made him lock her in. Feeling too worried that she might revert right back to her crazy emotional state, Jemma and Daisy spent the night in the containment pod in the garage just to be safe. 

“Sorry it turns out I’m crazy…” Daisy apologized in an exhausted tone, half asleep. 

Jemma was lying behind her, wrapped around her. She kissed the back of Daisy’s head. “You’re not crazy,” she said. “Just pregnant,” she kissed a spot at the back of Daisy’s jaw. “But now that the subject’s arisen...you can never make fun of me for the popcorn upheaval again,” she teased. Daisy let out a startled laugh and Jemma kissed her shoulder. 

\---

**_2019 -- September 11th_ **

Even though they had been through all the classes the first time around and Jemma had read through enough books according to Daisy that she should have qualified for another doctorate, there were all kinds of classes Jemma insisted they take regarding birth, breastfeeding and taking care of a baby. Daisy had managed to convince Jemma that they should take a break from all of this and just relax. Since Jemma’s birthday was coming up, they had decided they would have a barbecue since the weather was still nice. 

It was really the epitome of a stereotypical barbecue. Coulson and Mack squabbled over who should be manning the grill, which led to May shooing them away to takeover before they burned the burgers, hot dogs and chicken. There were lawn chairs strewn all over the back yard, coolers, food out on the picnic table. It was easy, relaxed and comfortable. There was a lot of laughter and Daisy could go nowhere without having hands shooting out to touch her baby belly. Each time it resulted in a warning shot from the baby not to encroach on her territory, except for Jemma’ touch. Those were met with less erratic, more lingering pressed of a foot or hand against its presence. 

As the night had started drawing to a close, after everyone had helped clean up, Daisy had started feeling off. She had felt lightheaded and achy. Jemma had sent her to lay down while she finished putting the last of the remnants of their barbecue away. When she had made it up to the bedroom, Daisy was on her way out of the master bathroom. She stopped in the threshold of the door and doubled over, a hand pressed to the side of her belly as she groaned and caught herself on the frame of the door. Jemma had spun around from her spot and immediately afterward had rushed over to her side, fighting to keep the panic from setting in. 

“What is it?” She asked as she supported Daisy’s weight and walked her to the bed. 

“I...I don’t know,” Daisy felt extremely lightheaded. She swayed in her seat as Jemma grabbed her phone from the bureau. 

“Was that a cramp? Does anything hurt?” She sat down next to Daisy, reaching with one hand to press her fingers along the inside of Daisy’s wrist, counting in her head as she felt Daisy’s pulse beneath her fingers while she dialed the doctor’s number and let it ring. 

“I think so...I don’t,” Daisy closed her eyes and swallowed hard against the dryness in her throat. She swayed slightly and then fainted. 

When she woke up, her eyes squinted against the bright light of a hospital room. She panicked at first until she felt a swift kick to the gut from the baby, as if s/he were trying to tell her to calm the hell down. Daisy rested her head back against the pillow behind her head. She settled both of her hands against her bulging stomach and looked over at the monitor that was hooked up to it to measure the baby’s movement even though she didn’t know how to read most of the numbers on it. 

To her left, Jemma was just outside the room, speaking with Doctor Terrell. Jemma’s arms were crossed over her chest and it was clear she was asking two more questions for every answer the doctor gave her. Knowing this was the case made Daisy smile a bit. “She’s going to spoil you rotten, y’know,” she murmured to the baby, running her hand gently along the side of her belly. Moments later, the doctor and Jemma finished their conversation and Jemma returned to the room. “Hey,” Daisy said. 

Jemma exhaled a sigh of relief to see Daisy awake. She offered a small smile and crossed over to the bed. “Hey, yourself,” She leaned over to kiss Daisy’s forehead and sat down on the edge of the bed facing her. She settled one hand against Daisy’s stomach and reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I thought we agreed, no surprises for my birthday, yeah?” She gently teased. 

Daisy let out a snort of laughter. “Hey, don’t blame me...this one was all your kid’s doing,” She smirked. Her face drew serious a moment later as she glanced toward the window to the hallway even though the doctor was long gone. “What did the doc say?” She asked, trying to hide her anxiousness of the answer to her question. 

“False alarm,” Jemma assured. “Your blood pressure’s a bit high, but Doctor Terrell says everything checks out. No bleeding, seems the cramps have gone, all baby measurements are perfectly normal and healthy.” 

“But…?” Daisy could sense there was more that made Jemma uneasy. She could see it in her wife’s face. 

“Doctor Terrell wants to keep you on bed rest for a few weeks,” Jemma said. “As a precaution.” She added, as if trying to reassure both of them that it was just a precautionary measure. 

Daisy tried not to frown. “Okay,” She took a deep breath and nodded. Bed rest. Sure. She could handle that, right? Nevermind that she had already be fairly stir crazy for months now. “How long?” She could manage a week or two of being waited on, right? 

 

Jemma grimaced. “Six weeks…” she answered. 

Daisy blinked. “...and this is a precaution?” 

“Yes,” Jemma nodded. “It won’t be total bed rest. You can move around the house with help. No lifting, no reaching, no cooking, no chores. So basically, you’ll have Elvis’ daily routine, minus the hairballs?” She added at the end as a joke to try and keep Daisy from panicking. 

Daisy sighed and managed to let out a small chuckle for Jemma’s sake at the joke. “Right,” she nodded as she looked down at the oversized bulge of her stomach with both of their hands on it. If bed rest was what she had to do to see this through, then bed rest was what she would do. 

\---

**_2019 -- December 13th_**

Daisy was beginning to think the universe was out to get them. What had originally been six weeks of partial bed rest had turned into ten before the doctor had finally released Daisy from, essentially, the life of a cat. By that point, her back usually hurt too much to spend too much time doing much of anything as she constantly tired out easily, so on the occasions when she went to the base with Jemma to get some work done, she fell asleep more often than not. Treks out to the store to grab necessities usually left her entirely wiped out. Though she couldn’t see them herself most of the time without great effort, her ankles swelled when she stood too long...or when she sat too long…or, heck, for the hell of it! These things themselves weren’t unmanageable with a back/foot rub from Jemma and a few cuddles to keep her from falling too grumpy, or a few other methods of boosting Daisy’s mood that Jemma had employed regularly. 

They were three days past their due date and had been camping at the base, mostly so that they would have the medical facilities at their disposal quickly and would have faster transportation to the hospital when the time did finally arrive. It was almost six in the morning on Friday the thirteenth when the first sounds of trouble had startled Daisy awake. She wasn’t even sure what had prompted it, just that the base was under attack. She and Jemma had managed alright for the first few rounds of attack before her stomach started cramping. The pain was almost blinding and she couldn’t keep up with the chaos that had happened around her after that. She was dragged away, with great effort, from Jemma, who was still struggling against a number of armed soldiers, and was dropped unceremoniously into one of the mobile containment pods. As the pod was removed from the base, she had busted open the computer panel on the wall to try and hack her way out of her own tightly protected locks. Before she could get very far, whomever these assholes were had flushed the container with an aerosol designed to knock out the pod’s occupant. 

When she awoke, she was still in the container but the internal panel was disabled. Daisy paced for a bit before the pain returned to her stomach. She took calculated breaths to ease the pain and kept her hands moving over her stomach. “Just hang in there,” She continuously talked to her stomach. “Not yet, okay? They need time to track us. We need to get home first…” 

“Hello, Skye.” 

The voice that greeted her made Daisy’s blood go cold. Daisy would have never thought hearing someone say her previous alias would make her want to disappear. It seemed the only times she heard it anymore were when someone was about to do something painful and terrifying to her...or when Jemma was extraordinarily upset with her about something/startled. Daisy turned around in the pod and faced the window along the side wall. She set her jaw and forced herself not to shudder at his presence when she came face to face with Ian Quinn. 

“Or, I’m sorry - it’s Daisy now, isn’t it?” He asked her with a cheerful smile. His eyebrows arched and he chuckled as he motioned toward her belly. “Look how far you’ve come after all this time - truly it’s been too long,” He smirked. “Who’s the lucky father, hm?” 

Of course. Of fucking course this is the kind of thing that would happen to Daisy on a Friday the fucking thirteenth, after she had spent the last few days joking about its approach and how clearly the baby _would_ pick such a day to finally make his/her appearance. So of course...of _course_ Daisy would be kidnapped by a multimillionaire businessman who aspired to be a mass murdering douchenozzle. “Why did you kidnap me?” As long as she was in the pod alone, she would be safe. Daisy just had to keep herself isolated until the team got to her. 

“I can see the wheels turning in your brain,” Quinn mused with a chuckle. “Don’t worry, they won’t be able to find you before I’m finished with you.” 

“I think you’ll find me harder to defeat with bullets now, Quinn,” She said, pretending she was bored and not absolutely terrified that she would go into labor...or worse, that it was possible that that was exactly what Quinn wanted. 

“I admit, I didn’t know you were pregnant until they brought you on board,” Quinn glanced at her stomach again. 

“This game is really old,” Daisy said. 

Quinn stepped closer to the window and let his smile fall from his face. “Don’t you worry, Daisy,” he gave her a wicked smile. “Soon enough, this’ll be over. I’ll do what I can to make sure your child survives,” He said. “If you think it’ll benefit him to live without his mother,” He said. 

Daisy straightened her shoulders and forced herself not to shake with fear. She slowly stepped closer to the window, teeth ground tightly together. “Come say that to my face, if you’re not still a sniveling coward.” She sneered. Quinn tapped a few buttons on the outer panel and blasts of the aerosol began to fill the container again. Daisy barely managed to keep herself from crashing to the floor, holding herself up enough to ease her way down, fighting to stay awake even though she knew it was a pointless fight, before the world went dark around her again. 

\-- 

When Daisy awoke, she couldn’t move. She was strapped to what she wanted to call a hospital bed but she was not in a hospital. She was in some kind of lab that Quinn had set up and she didn’t know what he was trying to do with her. Her arms and legs extended off the bed along limb braces and each limb was strapped down with three different straps. She struggled against them as her brain took its time fully waking up. Her hips, chest and even her forehead were strapped down tight to the bed as well. 

“Easy there, Tiger,” Quinn’s voice made Daisy shudder this time, unable to control it. Quinn chuckled. “Oh come now, there’s nothing to be afraid of. We’ve just got some tests to run.” He smirked at her. “My friend Doctor Weber here’s going to work on you,” He gave her a wink and then gave her shoulder a pat. 

Daisy struggled against the straps. Quinn walked away and Weber stepped over to the side of the bed. 

“Not to worry, miss,” Weber spoke, his German accent thick, hair balding and scruff around his face. “This’ll just be a little pinch and it’ll be over before long. I’ve convinced Quinn that we’ll likely get better results from the child. So you won’t have to suffer long,” He said. 

Daisy ground her teeth tight and started to thrash as much as she could around the table. It and the floor shook. Quinn turned around at the door. Daisy’s hand gripped the metal of the armrest below her hand and concentrated as much effort as she could on sending heavy vibrations through it. The whole room trembled but the arm rest broken apart, sending splintered pieces flying about, nuts and bolts coming apart until her arm was free. The doctor tried to grab her wrist but she caught his first. She clamped her hand around it and her concentration shifted. Daisy had to get out of here by any means necessary. She had to protect the baby. 

Quinn had rushed back into the room but stopped a few feet shy of Doctor Weber. Weber’s body shook violently as Daisy held onto his wrist. He fell to his knees, screaming in agony as Daisy gripped the other armrest as well, shaking it apart by the nuts and bolts of that were holding it together in order to free her arm. Weber fell in a heap of twisted, busted and near shattered bag of bones when Daisy let go. She cast her hand in Quinn’s direction before he could reach for his gun and used her powers to throw him across the room. He collapsed in an unconscious heap and Daisy began scrambling to get the straps off of her, shaking some of them apart when they didn’t break free. She slipped off of the bed, dizzy as she set her feet on the ground. As she started for the door, Quinn started to come to. Before she could bring her hands up he aimed and squeezed off two rounds from his gun. Daisy only had time to turn her back toward him in an attempt to protect the baby from the bullets. 

The bullets never hit her, though. Daisy opened her eyes, arms wrapped around her stomach, to find she was covered in...she didn’t know what. It was some kind of...purple light that circled her in a sphere. She faced Quinn, who climbed to his feet. His eyes were wide. He raised his gun again and got off a shot as Daisy threw her hands up to send him flying again. The shot ricocheted off the purple force field and into a nearby wall. Daisy felt weak from the exhaustion, from the use of the powers and….possibly from whatever the purple light was? She didn’t know. She felt her knees going weak as Quinn struggled to his feet. Quinn raised the gun again. Daisy lurched, hunching over slightly as she gripped a hand onto her stomach. She felt a rush of warm liquid as it raced down her pajama pant legs and pooled on the floor. Her eyes widened. _No!_ she thought, _not yet...not yet, we’re not safe, not yet!_

Daisy’s mind reeled. Quinn pulled the hammer of his gun back, stepping closer as he aimed. The purple force field of light receded, seemingly exhausted by the new turn of events of Daisy’s water breaking. She didn’t have time to let go of her stomach but before Quinn could fire at her the double doors at the other end of the room burst open. Bobbi was was the first one through them on the other side. Quinn spun toward her as Daisy screamed for her to get down, but Bobbi had already launched one of her batons at Quin. Jemma was rushing through the doors behind her as she threw her baton out, but Bobbi grabbed Jemma and pulled her away from Quinn’s line of fire. The gun went off as the baton crashed into Quinn’s face, sending the bullet wildly off track and up into the ceiling. 

Bobbi let Jemma go and caught her baton as it came back to her. She swung them around with practiced ease and advanced on Quinn. Jemma raced across the room to Daisy, calling out her name. She barely made it in time to catch Daisy as her knees began to give out. May was close behind, watching their rear while Bobbi took care of Quinn. 

“Jem,” Daisy clenched her eyes shut as a sharp twist of pain radiated out from her gut. She clenched a fistful of Jemma’s sleeve as Jemma caught her on her way to the floor. 

“It’s okay, we’re here,” Jemma looked around them to see the lab, the dismantled bed...the dead doctor with the very obviously twisted and broken bones. Her eyes scanned Daisy for injuries and then finally took stock of the mess about her clothes and the floor. 

“Water broke,” Daisy confirmed. Sweat had begun to bead on her forehead and she had actually begun to shake just enough for it to be noticeable. Jemma suddenly realized that Daisy was trying to force her fear as far internally as she possibly could, keeping the room from shaking around them, but possibly hurting herself and maybe even the baby inadvertently in the process. She was scared, terrified, Jemma could see it in her face and her eyes. 

“Daisy,” Jemma said her name calmly. “Look at me,” She ordered. Daisy’s eyes turned toward Jemma’s. “You need to breathe and just let the pain happen with the contractions. We can handle the tremors, I promise...just breathe, okay?” She said. “We’re going to get you out of here and to a hospital,” she moved to help Daisy up to her feet, pulling one of Daisy’s arms around her shoulders and moving her other arm around Daisy’s waist. Daisy couldn’t stand up straight, but Jemma was holding most of her weight anyhow. “Just keep breathing with me, okay?” She mimicked the types of breathing patterns they had practiced and Daisy struggled to focus as Jemma began to pull her along. 

“Get Daisy to the plane, I’ll catch up,” Bobbi assured. 

May nodded and led the way through the corridor. They made it halfway down before Daisy doubled over in pain again with a scream. May focused on clearing the hall. Jemma, on the other hand, knew that they would need to move more quickly. She had been trying to keep count in her head between each time Daisy let out a groan of pain. As they moved, the intervals became shorter. With sudden strength Daisy was unaware Jemma even possessed, she was suddenly swept up into Jemma’s arms, one hooked under the back of her knees and the other around her back. Daisy held on, one arm tightly gripped around Jemma’s neck and shoulders, the other gripping at a fistfull of her shirt front. 

May grabbed two guns, one from her holster and one from one of the soldiers she had taken out. She aimed both as they advanced and used them with precision to clear their way, jogging ahead as Jemma raced as quickly as she could with Daisy in her arms while her adrenaline spiked and sent her heart racing with unnatural speed. By the time they made it to the plane, Bobbi had caught up with them and jumped on. 

Jemma made it with Daisy to the med bay and managed to get her into a bed before the others were rushing around the bay, trying to make preparations. Daisy looked like she might actually faint. “Daisy, hey, stay with me, we’re almost there,” She said as the plane raced to find a hospital. Every so often, Daisy’s eyes would clench shut and she would hunch into a curled ball on her side, gripping at her baby belly and willing to baby to wait just a little longer as she shouted in pain. Jemma tried to make her focus each time, rubbed her back, tried to get her to breathe properly, gripped her hand back with equal levels of fear racing through her. 

“She has a power,” Daisy blurted between gasps for air when the pain subsided after the last contraction. She murmured it again right afterward, exhausted. 

“What?” Jemma asked, pushing her hair out of her face and holding onto her hand and her face. “What did you say?” 

“She has a power,” Daisy repeated. “It’s...a shield,” As soon as the word was out, the irony of that made her laugh uncontrollably. Jemma didn’t know what to make of that. Was she being serious or was she delirious? 

Thankfully, they made it to the closest hospital and rushed Daisy in. Jemma followed right into the room but the others were forced into a waiting room. Nurses kept trying to drag Jemma away to make her change into some scrubs, but Jemma refused to let go of Daisy’s hand. She knew if she did there was no telling what could happen. So instead, she had to adjust her grip on Daisy’s hand so the nurses could pull a paper gown on her and tie it at the back. 

“This was a bad idea,” Daisy blurted as Jemma wiped her forehead off with cold damp cloth one of the nurses had given her. Her hand and arm shook as she gripped tightly onto Jemma’s hand in a near death grip. “Jem, I can’t…” She clenched her eyes and shook her head as she tried to catch her breath between bouts of uncontrollable screams of pain. 

There was a part of Jemma that wanted to die every time Daisy screamed in pain. It was painful to hear when there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about it right now. She knew Daisy meant she couldn’t control the tremors. “Yes you can,” Her voice came out much firmer and much more confident than she felt. Daisy’s arm continued to shake and Jemma could feel the tremors fighting to push free into her own arm. “Daisy,” She didn’t get to say anymore because Daisy hunched forward again as another contraction came. Daisy squeezed her hand so hard, Jemma was sure any one of her fingers was going to dislocate from its knuckle joint at any moment. The bed shook when Daisy’s other hand gripped the rail on the other side of the bed. Jemma dropped the towel and moved to wedge her hip on the edge of the bed so she could reach around Daisy’s shoulders. She pried Daisy’s hand free from the bed and Daisy clamped her hand around Jemma’s again. She leaned her forehead against the side of Daisy’s head and followed it forward and back with each contraction and lull between them. 

“Daisy, you need to breathe,” Jemma made her comments commands, orders even. There was no question to them. She listened simultaneously to what the doctors and nurses were saying as they moved about the room and to Daisy as she gasped out comments between contractions. 

Daisy shook her head, clinging to Jemma’s hands as if they were the only thing keeping her from shattering the hospital into pieces. Jemma was pretty sure that might actually be the case. “I can’t,” She was crying as she said it again and again. 

The fear, the absolute abject fear for both the baby and for Daisy that Jemma felt was palpable. The doctor was shouting about the baby crowning. It felt like it had taken forever to get to that point. It actually had, as they had been in the hospital for almost three hours by that point. From the way the contractions had gone on the plane, Jemma hadn’t been sure they would make it to the hospital before the baby arrived. 

“Daisy, we’re here,” She said, gripping back against Daisy’s hands just as tightly in an attempt to steady them, to keep her still and supported. Her forehead was pressed tight to the side of Daisy’s head, turning every so often to look toward the doctor and the end of the bed. She wanted to see everything that was happening but she knew the difference between want and need. She wanted to see the birth of their baby as it happened, but she needed to be right where she was with Daisy. “We’re finally here,” She was murmuring as the doctor was instructing her to push. “It took us so long to get here, don’t give up now, you can do this, we can.” She said between repeating the doctor’s instructions, giving up on stopping her own tears from sailing down her cheeks. Daisy was gasping between pushes, her head fell to lean against Jemma’s collar after a particularly difficult push. 

“You’re almost done, Daisy,” The doctor was saying from the end of the bed. “We just need one last big push, okay?” He said. 

Daisy’s weight leaned heavily on Jemma. Jemma wasn’t sure how she was still conscious but she was reasoned it was strictly chemical related at that point from the labor. With exhaustion clear, Daisy forced a few nods to acknowledge that she understood. She made every attempt to breathe in all the ways Jemma had been coaching her through, to keep her focus on everything and anything but her fear, or tried to at least. Jemma kissed the top of her head and squeezed her hands tight as the doctor counted down. Daisy ground her teeth together and strained to push as she dug her nails into Jemma’s hands, ending the long push in an unrestrained scream of pain before she collapsed back against Jemma. 

Where Daisy’s muscles gave out in exhaustion and fell limp back against her while still watching the end of the bed through half lidded eyes as she panted and gulped down air, Jemma’s muscles tensed as she watched the end of the bed and the doctor as the nurses converged with blankets and towels, tools to suction out the baby’s mouth and nose. Daisy was fighting to catch her breath and Jemma was holding hers, waiting for cries, or the doctor - _something_. 

One of the nurses finished suctioning out the baby’s mouth and a moment that felt like hours later loud shrill cries filled the room and a sob escaped both Daisy and Jemma on each of their next exhales. Daisy’s heart monitors had leveled off enough that Jemma felt it was safe enough to let go of her hand. She brought her free hand up to rest against the side of Daisy’s head as she kissed the top of it over and over again. Both of them were crying. Neither cared. 

“Congratulations, it’s a girl!” The doctor cheered. He stood up from his stool with the baby in his arms and this time Daisy let go of Jemma’s other hand but only because the doctor was already moving to lay the baby into her arms. When Daisy's arms trembled slightly as they came up to cradle the baby against her chest, it was because she was simultaneously expelling a sob and a laugh at the same time. Jemma’s hand stayed where it was resting against Daisy’s head, resting her arm around her shoulders. The other came to rest along the length of Daisy’s arm under the baby, wanting to simply hold onto and connect to each of them in that moment. Daisy's eyes were glued on the baby’s face, so were Jemma's. Still covered in muck from the ordeal, the baby’s face was red from the sudden crying, her eyes were clenched shut and her mouth dropped open in a wail. 

Jemma had never in her life seen nor heard anything more beautiful than the shrilly, piercing wails and the body fluid and goo covered infant...at least until the moment the baby's head came to rest on Daisy’s chest. Moments after her ear was pressed against Daisy’s chest, listening to the familiar heartbeat beneath, her wails died into quick little huffs of air, each one ending in a half cry hum. Big round eyes fixated up at the closest thing it could, Daisy’s face. 

Daisy's smile grew brilliant. They had made it - they had actually made it! She was here with them...safe. "Hi, Lilly," She sniffled even though she was so extremely happy she felt overwhelmed. She couldn't stop the smile now that it was on her face. "We've been waiting for you so long..." She said as the baby’s eyes stared up at her. 

Jemma didn't want to look away. She kissed the side of Daisy's head and leaned the side of her head against Daisy’s, lifting her fingers to gently run her them along Lily’s arm beneath the blanket and then gently touched her cheek. Daisy finally tore her eyes from the baby and looked at Jemma’s face as she stared down at their daughter. Daisy kissed Jemma's cheek. "I love you, " she whispered through the happy tears. 

Jemma turned and stole a few quick kisses, letting out a couple of "I love you"s with her before they were back to staring.

Everything happened it seemed in a whirlwind after that. Jemma was allowed to cut the umbilical cord which, to her, seemed to make things more real. It had happened. They had made it to the finish line and Lily was here. Jemma almost couldn’t believe it, after all that they had been through to get here. The baby was swept away to be cleaned, measured, weighed and tested while the flurry continued in the room, to clean up Daisy and get her changed into a hospital gown and moved into a clean bed in her own room. 

Jemma had changed into a scrub shirt that they had brought her so she would have clean clothes on. She sat on the edge of the propped up bed with Daisy, who was falling in and out of sleep as the exhaustion began to settle over her. Jemma picked her hand up and kissed the back of it. She brushed her hair out of her face and behind her ears. 

"Sorry I panicked," Daisy murmured. 

Jemma leaned over and kissed her gently. "I love you. You're amazing," she whispered. Daisy had done what Jemma couldn't. 

"Me?" The corner of Daisy’s lips curled up. "You hulked out and carried us, like..a mile," she said as she squeezed her hand. "You kept the tremors at bay. You're amazing," she said. "I love you." her eyes welled again. "I can't believe she's here..." 

Jemma couldn't help the smile that came to her face. She had time to kiss Daisy’s forehead before the nurses wheeled in a clear bassinet from the nursery with Lily inside. She was wrapped up in a blue, pink and white striped hospital blanket with a little pink knit cap on her little head, asleep from her big ordeal. They would have to wake her up to feed her, the nurse instructed but Jemma took a long moment as she gingerly scooped Lily up into her arms for the first time, just to memorize the moment, the way everything felt, the way everything smelled, the way her heart fluttered wildly in her chest. 

She walked to the bed and passed the baby over before she settled on the edge of the bed next to Daisy with her legs stretched out. They woke Lily up, and she was mighty cranky about it, at least until they managed to get her to latch onto Daisy’s nipple to start eating. "Yeahhhh," Daisy nodded down at Lily who stared up at her while she chugged away. "That makes your mum less cranky too," she mused with a smirk. 

"Daisy!" Jemma scolded in a whisper to avoid startling the baby. 

"What? It's true," she grinned and leaned far enough over to kiss her. 

After feeding and burping was done and they were all re-situated, staring in wonder at their sleeping daughter commenced while they stole kisses from each other here and there and murmured quietly to each other. 

"You'd better go tell them everything's okay and let them come meet her before they start cracking skulls," Daisy teased tiredly after a long time. 

Jemma was reluctant to leave them, but she nodded and gave them each a kiss. She made her way out to the waiting room. At once, everyone was up and on their feet, scrambling to form a half circle in front of Jemma, asking questions all at once. Jemma laughed as her happy tears returned with her Cheshire sized smile. 

"It's a girl!" She told them, unable to contain the smile on her face. “Everyone’s healthy.” Cheers erupted and Jemma was pulled in for numerous hugs and kisses as she answered their questions and assured them that the baby and Daisy were both perfectly healthy and perfect. She led them back to the room to meet Lily and visit for a little while. Jemma was sure between everyone there would be enough pictures to fill multiple albums. 

Everything was perfect, as it should be. Eventually it came down to Jemma, Daisy and Lily alone again. Jemma held Lily cradled and asleep in her arms and Daisy was slowly nodding off against her side with her head on Jemma’s shoulder. “She saved us,” Daisy whispered through a yawn. She was turned slightly on her side, with a hand resting along the baby’s shoulder and against Jemma’s arm. 

“What?” Jemma asked, quiet in tone since she wanted them both to rest. She remembered that Daisy had said something on the plane about the baby having a power, but she hadn’t been sure then if Daisy was just delirious or not. 

“She saved us,” Daisy repeated. “He shot right at us, there wasn’t any time I just turned around but...there was...this...shield,” She struggled to describe it. “I don’t know where it came from...It was purple, violet colored...it made a whole sphere around us. Bullets bounced _off_ of it.” she tilted her head to tip her eyes toward Jemma. “It disappeared when my water broke, right before you guys got there...she saved us.” 

Jemma had so many questions, she didn’t know where to start. She looked from Daisy back down to Lily, their apparent little superhero in the making. She turned her head and kissed Daisy’s forehead. “Do you have any idea how much I love you both?” she asked. 

Daisy smiled. “I think I might have some idea, yeah,” she said. She turned and kissed Jemma’s shoulder and they both fell quiet. Within moments, Daisy was asleep, breathing evenly. Jemma was left holding onto Lily while the both of them slept peacefully in her arms and against her shoulder. 

They had a lot to talk about and there were plenty of questions, but none of that mattered at this very moment. This was everything. This was their family, their world - their universe, even. Everything had finally fallen into place perfectly for them for this one small moment of time. This was complete, unbridled happiness. This was perfection. This was blissful. This was...everything they had fought so hard to achieve. This was, finally, her family. They were Jemma’s heart, and it was full.


	15. Stronger Than You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings:** Depictions of Graphic Violence, Minor Sexual Assault, Possible Adrenaline Inducing Situations, but also some chuckles and sap...but mostly a lot of violence and adrenaline. 
> 
> Merry Xmas to those of you the celebrate it, Happy Holidays of any kind to those that don't. My gift to you is not as fluffy as some of the adorable Xmas fics I have perused today, but hey! This story's pretty much proven it's a bit of a twisting roller coaster, eh? Back to the action! Merry Xmas, Happy Holidays! Have a lovely, safe and happy week!! <3 <3 
> 
> **Panyan Enhanced-Fujita Adrenaline Scale:** Based off of ratings from 1 to 10, 1 being the happiest, sappiest, fluffiest possible rating and 10 being the most heart-stoppingly harrowing adrenaline inducing action possible......this chapter may rate as a 10....possibly 11 - further date needed per user _Panyan_ upon review of the below action. ;0)  
>  (as always I'm sorry for my terrible typos/grammar errors in my haste to churn this out!)  
> \----------------------------

Ward was _pissed_. It was so difficult to find useful, dedicated soldiers for nefarious plots of revenge so that he didn't have to do everything himself. He ground his teeth together and swung the leg Hunter didn’t have a grasp on with whatever energy power he seemed to suddenly have, and planted his boot sole firmly across Hunter’s face. Lance let out a groan as his grip fell away. He scrambled back just out of Ward’s reach and quickly leapt to his feet, bouncing from foot to foot on his toes, fists up and ready to keep fighting.

Ward’s face was a sour scowling glare. He actually growled as he moved to stand up on his own two feet. He reached for the handle of the Knife Simmons had jammed into his clavicle as he stared Hunter down. Wrapping his hand around the handle, Ward’s facial muscles twitched before he tore the knife free. Blood immediately began to seep in an uncontrollable gush from the wound – one which was very similar to the one Jemma had already given him in the woods previously.

Hunter tried to prepare himself for a fight where Ward had a physical weapon and Hunter was his own physical weapon. He made sure to keep his breathing steady and he concentrated on the fact that the disfigured, wounded and bleeding man in front of him was someone he had wanted dead for quite some time after what Ward had done to Bobbi. He hadn't tapped into this anger in quite some time, however, since Daisy had killed Ward...or so they had thought. Hunter’s hands began to light up again. He could feel the heat from the bulbous orbs of energy that circled his clenched fists to his wrists but it didn’t hurt, not in the way he had injured Ward by grabbing his leg with it. The scent of singed flesh still hung in the air of the hallway. It would have been nauseating if it weren’t for the fact that Hunter’s adrenaline was rushing full force.

Ward slowly tilted his head toward his right shoulder and cracked his neck. “I want you to know,” he said as he brought his hands up in front of him to prepare for the attack he was trying to provoke out of Hunter. “That I’m going to save you for last,” He licked his lips and balled his fists. “I’ll let you bury your friends before I come for you,” Ward grinned. “Starting with Morse-,”

The name was just rolling off his tongue when Hunter ground his teeth together and levied all of his weight behind the punch he threw. Ward caught his arm below the wrist to stop the punch and then tugged Hunter’s hand down so the orb pressed against the wound Jemma had given him when she stabbed him. Ward let out a prolonged grunt of pain as he kept Hunter from pulling his fist away until he was sure the knife wound was cauterized and no longer bleeding. Hunter went to swing his other fist at Ward but Ward’s fist collided with Hunter’s throat before he could make contact. Hunter stumbled back and before he could do anything, Ward had grabbed him and launched him through the supply closet door next to them in the hall.

Hunter was old cold before he’d even landed on the floor in a heap. Ward was down the hall into the stairwell Daisy had fled into. He paused at the landing and looked upward. It appeared more of Coulson’s team was on the way down the stairs. No Daisy, it looked like, on any of the flights from what he could see. Ward looked toward the landing above him but saw no signs of anyone having passed that way. He leaned around the corner to look at the landing below and spotted blood splotches on the landing and the door handle. _Bingo_ , he thought. Ward turned and made his way down the stairs to the basement level door before any of the agents rushing from the upper flights ever noticed he was on the stairs.

\---

Fitz paced anxiously, fidgeting with the rifle he had from the armory. He had a few other gadgets up his sleeve or in his pockets at least, but his hands were shaking as he paced and stared at the roof access door.

“You should both be down there,” Fitz murmured.

“Gotta keep the ride out secure,” Joey reminded him with a shrug. He would have liked to help more than just stand around but everybody had a job and this particular job was his for this moment.

Alisha was frowning at the door. “I’m with Fitz,” She mused with a sigh. She turned to head inside the plane.

“Where are you going?” Joey asked her.

Alisha grinned. “Divide and conquer, Joe…divide and conquer,” she gave him a wink and stood just inside the open back bay of the plane. It was prepped and ready to fly with Mack waiting restlessly in the cockpit. Alisha would remain standing guard from inside the plane as the last line of defense behind Fitz and Joey and would also duplicate and send out her doubles. They could cover ground and help out without having to leave her guard post at the plane with the boys.

“Be safe,” Fitz said. He felt uneasy about Alisha’s power in particular since he knew what the effect was on her if it happened by chance that one of her doubles was taken out in battle. Alisha gave him a smile and another little wink. She took a deep breath and began to do her thing, eyes glazing over into a milky haze. Multiple projection duplicates speared off from her, tactical gear and all, and jogged one after the other for the open access door that led from the roof down into the hospital stairwell with practiced ease.

\---

Daisy made her way down the long hallway at a jog. Her first plan was to get to the other end of the wing of the basement she had dashed into so that she could make it back up to the first level and find an exit door. Before she had left the door she had carried Lily through, she had grabbed the metal encased wire from the push bar that operated the opener and yanked it free to keep anyone from following her or, at the very least, slowing them down as much as possible. It was the sound of someone tugging forcefully at the door that made her change direction. She turned and rushed into the first room to her right. It turned out to be a medical supply closet.

Though the person working on tugging the stairwell door open hadn’t gotten it open yet, Daisy pulled the closet door shut behind her and kept the light off. Lily was still whimpering in her shoulder and sniffling. Daisy stood her up on the small table in the room that held a sign in sheet for nurses and doctors who might enter. “Come here, hey, shhhh, it’s okay, baby,” she kissed Lily’s forehead and gently wiped off her cheeks. That’s when she saw it. Lily’s purple shield gave a flicker. She was tired and injured; both things were affecting her ability to hold onto her shield.

Daisy crouched slightly to meet Lily eye to eye, whispering as she spoke. “Lily,” She spoke her daughter’s name gently. Her fear for Lily’s safety, coupled with not knowing if Jemma was even still alive were overpowering enough to keep the anger at herself for having let her daughter get into this danger in the first place momentarily at bay. Her heart hurt for the fear she saw in Lily’s face. “I want you to take down your bubble, okay?” Lily looked at her mama, confused. She was swaying just slightly on her feet and it was clear that this was all too much for her. Daisy wanted to be able to let her rest, to take away the pain from the injury she had, to keep her from feeling as scared as she looked. “Only bring it back when you see one of the bad guys or they’re coming after you, okay?” she said. Lily pulled the violet shield down and nodded slowly. “Good, girl,” Daisy kissed her forehead and gently pulled her in for a hug to keep from hurting broken arm. She leaned her forehead to Lily’s and rested her hands on the sides of her small face, wiping at new tears with her thumbs.

“My brave little Monkey,” she let out a slow breath. “I’m sorry,” She whispered. She kissed Lily’s forehead one more time and then, with a deep breath she steeled herself for what would have to be done to accomplish the single most important task at hand; get Lily to safety. With what little light seeped in from the much too tiny to fit through window at the very top of the back wall of the supply closet, she set Lily on the ground to keep her close and started searching. Daisy found some cold compress instant ice packs. She smashed them between her hands and then carefully tucked them into the pillowcase that was tying Lily’s injured arm to her chest to hopefully relieve some of the pain her daughter was feeling.

The reality of the situation was that Daisy was a lot weaker than her normal self would have been. She did what she could to ignore the random cramping of muscles as the injected alien blood serum made its way through her, working to mend all of her worst injuries. It was difficult to fully catch her breath still, but nowhere near as bad as it had been. She was exhausted. Each time she used her abilities, it took more out of her than it normally would have in any capacity.

Between the actual injuries she had sustained and the injection working feverishly with her body to repair itself and it was taking a drastic toll on her stamina. She wanted just to lie down and wrap herself protectively around Lily until the others could come and take them to safety, but she wasn’t nearly dumb enough to do such a naïve and dangerous thing to her daughter. She found some gauze and wrapped up the inside of her elbow where she had torn out one of the IV lines. Next she quickly wrapped up the hand on the same arm since she had ripped the IV out of there too.

As she searched for useful items she could use to fight, she kept reaching down to brush her hand over Lily’s hair and along her shoulders, both to console Lily and to remind herself that Lily, for the time being, was there with her and therefore was safe, if shaken. She found a drawer tray with sanitized scalpels and pulled one out. She moved Lily out of the way and off to the side for a moment and then uncapped the scalpel. Reaching below the hem of her hospital gown, she brought the sharp blade to the highest part of the tube to the catheter that she could reach and, clenching her teeth against the pain it caused to tug on the tube, she flicked her wrist and sliced through the tube with a stifled grunt of pain. She caught the tube and untied the bag from her leg before tossing it into the only small trashcan she saw in the room. She tossed the scalpel with it and then went back to Lily and the drawers she was looking through. A dizzy spell swept through her with a rush of the burning, fiery feeling in her veins as it rushed from her head down through her limbs.

With a shake of her head to jog her back into focus, Daisy grabbed another scalpel. She peeled it from its plastic and kept the cap on it before tucking it, blade down, into the wrist cuff of gauze she had wrapped around her wrist and lower forearm when she had been wrapping her hand earlier. It was as her vision began swimming with exhaustion, trying to pull her into sleep and off her feet that Daisy’s hand found a drawer that had all manner of instant injectable medications, including…she squinted at them – yes! Including epinephrine, which was exactly what Daisy needed right then before her body pulled her back into the blackness of unconsciousness. She grabbed the first epi-pen and made sure that was all that was in it. Daisy had used one of these only once before when Bobbi had gone down in a firefight not to a bullet, but to a bee. It had been terrifying.

Daisy pulled the cap and hesitated. Her thoughts were muddled. Even with the door to the closet closed, she could hear the person at the end of the hall still working on the door. With the racket the force was making, Daisy knew the door wouldn’t hold for too long. Her hands were unsteady and the exhaustion was setting in faster than she could fight it. Daisy knew that injecting herself with adrenaline was a terrible idea when it wasn’t something she needed for a medical condition like anaphylactic shock, but her options were limited and she needed to be able to stay conscious to keep Lily safe. Keeping Lily safe was the only thing that mattered.

Pressing her teeth down into her bottom lip, Daisy wrapped her hand tight around the device and jammed it hard into the side of her thigh until she heard a click sound. The needle shot out into her skin and released the dose of epinephrine into her system. She dropped the pen when she was done with it and moved back over to Lily as she searched for anything more to use as defensive weapons. In her search she had found some scrub pants to tug on. She decided quickly to utilize the large cargo pockets on the sides of the legs. In the left one, she dropped a couple more of the adrenaline injector pens and a capped extra scalpel. In the right pocket she shoved a couple syringes and a couple of different medications that she thought would be useful based off of the different suffixes Jemma had taught her long ago.

Finally, there came a point that Daisy knew was coming, knew she had to do and dreaded. She pulled open the bottom drawer of a large filing cabinet and was relieved to see it was mostly empty. She crouched down then, next to Lily as the shot of adrenaline really started to hit her. She couldn’t stop from sweating; something she had been doing since her seizures from the injection Jemma gave her had subsided. Her heart was pounding so hard that it was reverberating in her ear drums.

Lily was still trembling and whimpering every so often. She had a seemingly unstoppable steady stream of tears on her cheeks. Daisy wanted nothing more than to sweep her daughter into her arms and promise her that everything was going to be alright. “Lily,” she spoke softly as she held one hand on the side of Lily’s face and the other rested along her uninjured shoulder. “I know you’re scared, Monkey, I am too,” She said. “There’s something I have to do to keep you safe, so I’m gonna need you to be brave for me as long as you can, okay?” She asked. Lily’s eyes shook as they filled with more tears. Forgetting about wanting to move as quickly as possible, Daisy pulled Lily in to hug her, trying to be as gentle as she could because of her arm. She kissed the side of her head. “I love you, Lily. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you,” She had made this promise before and it had literally killed her. Daisy would gladly suffer the same fate over again to ensure her daughter was protected.

Keeping her arm around Lily, Daisy reached for the pile of hospital throw blankets that were on the shelf next to the scrub pants she had found. She placed some in the bottom of the filing cabinet and then scooped Lily up and moved to lay her down on them. She reached for another blanket that she wanted to cover Lily up with but Lily let out a whimper when she realized Daisy was going to leave her.

“Mama! No!” She shook her head and climbed right up to her feet and wrapped her one good arm tight around Daisy’s neck.

Daisy clenched her eyes against the tears that wanted to come. She patted Lily’s back. “Shhhhh,” She inhaled a steadying breath and leaned back. Lily let out another whimper of protest and Daisy cupped her face in her hands and wiped at her tears. “There’s a bad man who wants to hurt us. I’m not going to let him …but…I need your help, Monkey,” she said. “I need you to stay here and hide. Be as quiet as you can – if you need it, you use your bubble to protect yourself.” Daisy hated herself for having to do this to Lily. Lily tried to protest again but then just leaned in to drop her head against Daisy’s shoulder with a sniffle. “I love you, so much,” Daisy whispered. It took a little more convincing but finally she managed to get Lily to lie down in the long filing cabinet drawer on the blankets. She laid another over top of her daughter, who looked absolutely petrified and then brushed her hand over her hair and leaned over to kiss the side of her head. “Stay here until me and Mummy come back for you, okay?” She waited for Lily to nod and kissed her one more time. “I love you, Monkey,” she said before she shut the drawer.

Even though the adrenaline had fully hit and coursed through her system, it took great effort to make herself move. There was nothing in her that _wanted_ to leave her daughter anywhere out of her sight, but she knew there were things she had to do that she didn’t want Lily to see and that would put her daughter in further danger if she were present even with her shield. She made it into the hallway and rushed a few doors down to duck into a different room, this one was an office. Leaving the door cracked, Daisy peeked out just in time to see the door at the end of the hallway as it was yanked from his hinges finally. Ward strolled through the now open doorway, limping from the injury to his calf that Hunter had issued. His left side was covered in blood, probably from the knife wound that Jemma had given him, but it didn’t seem to be still bleeding.

Ward looked back and forth as he slowly limped up the hall, a wicked smirk on his face as he went. “Eenie, meanie, miney, mo…” He sung as he walked. “You may as well come out from wherever you’re hiding, I’ll find you wherever you go,” He drew with a roll of sardonic laughter that made Daisy’s spine shudder. She waited until Ward had passed the room she was currently hiding and then waited to count out another few of  
his paces for good measure.

She moved with a purpose then – she wanted him off of this floor and as far away from Lily as possible. She slipped into the hallway, acting as if she were trying to be as quiet as she could be in order to ‘sneak’ away. She quietly paced until she was halfway between Ward and the door he had peel off of its hinges. She wanted to know where he had gained his power from, remembering that he had peeled the door of her suv right off of its hinges during the accident.

“You always did have a habit of sneaking around,” Ward’s voice stopped Daisy’s progress.

She turned to look over her shoulder at him. Daisy purposefully made a show of looking at the open doorway and then looking back at Ward. A predatory grin curved up Ward’s lips.

“I’m going to enjoy draining most of the life out of you before I make you watch me take Lily’s,” He practically growled as he spoke.

Daisy froze for a moment; her already racing heart didn’t take long to make her blood boil at the thought of Ward being able to hurt Lily. Ward had already hurt Lily, had broken her arm. “You must feel real powerful, Grant,” she was practically sneering as she spat his name out with disgust. “It takes a strong man to beat up a three year old,” Two and a half, but who was counting? She tilted her head and let her own lips curve into a falsely mirthful smile. “But I guess you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, hm? Like father, like son?” She arched her eyebrows. Ward ground his teeth together. Daisy knew she had hit the right nerve. She spun on her bare feet and ran as fast as her body would allow – which was a lot faster than it had been able to move before she had shot herself up with adrenaline – toward the exit door. She dashed through it without looking back over her shoulder and ran down another two flights of stairs to the second basement level. She crashed through the emergency door and kept running, entirely aware that even with his injuries, Ward would be faster than her.

\---

“Found Daisy,” Alisha called out from her spot without moving.

Fitz turned to look back at her in the open bay of the jet. The milky white haze that clouded her eyes always made him feel uneasy. “Is she alive?” He asked.  
Alisha nodded. “And awake.”

“Where?” Fitz asked, gaping at Alisha as he wondered how Daisy had been able to wake up so quickly after the injection. It had taken her much longer last time. Was that because she hadn’t gone through the terrigenesis the first time?

“Ward’s chasing after her,” Alisha replied.

“Well…go help her!” Fitz snapped, frowning at her.

“Easy, Antsy,” Alisha replied. “I’m on it.”

“What about the others?” Joey asked without looking away from the door that he was aiming at.

“On that too,” Alisha assured.

In the stairwell, Alisha’s double jogged down the flights of stairs from the first level, past the first basement level to the second basement level, where she had seen Ward disappear when she had leaned over the stairwell railing to get a look at the commotion below her.

In the corridor of the first floor, Alisha saw bodies. Most of them were of dead Hydra agents. There was still a fairly massive fight going on throughout the floor. Double #2 began to jog down the hall when she spotted a familiar head of light brown hair lying motionless, face down on the floor.

“Alisha,” Mack’s voice interrupted her thoughts through the communication piece that was in her ear. “How are the others?”

Double #2 pressed to of her fingers firmly to Jemma’s neck. She exhaled a relieved sigh when she felt a pulse beneath the pads of her fingers. “Found Simmons,” Alisha answered from the back of the jet.

Fitz spun around this time, his whole body, moving up the ramp closer to Alisha. “Is she alright?”

“She’s alive,” Alisha answered. “Unconscious,” She added. “Looks like she’s got a head wound,” She said.

Fitz shifted on his feet and turned to look at the roof top door, chewing on his bottom lip.  
“Fitz,” Mack spoke, filtering through into Fitz’s earpiece. “You have your orders. Everyone’s got a job. We’ll be out of here as soon as we get everyone on board. Guard the jet to make sure they’ve got somewhere to retreat to safety.”

Fitz pressed his lips tight together, cursing himself for not having followed through on his decision to train to be a fully functioning field operative after they had brought Simmons back through the portal.

Double #2 reached for Jemma’s shoulder and gave her a few firm shakes. “Simmons,” she said, glancing up and down the hallway to watch for any approaching enemies or friendlies alike. “Hey, Simmons…c’mon, you have to wake up now,” She felt relief when Jemma slowly started to stir.

Jemma clenched her eyes and inhaled a hiss of pain as Alisha slowly helped her sit up. “Easy there, easy. Nice and slow,” she instructed.

Jemma leaned to sit back against the wall behind her. She let out a groan of pain when the back of her head leaned against it and instinctively reached back to press her hand to the spot, which only caused her another grimace and grunt of pain.

“Simmons,” Alisha said again. Jemma blinked and squinted through bleary vision at Alisha. “Welcome back,” she said. “Can you stand?”

Jemma nodded and let Alisha help her up. With the wave of dizziness hat swept over her, Jemma’s brain caught up to the situation. “Lily,” she said. “Where’s Lily?”

“Haven’t found her yet,” Alisha answered honestly.

“Skye?” Jemma asked. She shook her head and gasped in pain again. “Daisy?” She corrected herself.

“She’s awake,” Alisha answered as she steadied Jemma with her hands.

Jemma’s eyes opened up wide as she gaped at Alisha. So she _had_ actually seen Daisy. It wasn’t just a hallucination. “Where?” She asked, gripping onto Alisha’s sleeves.  
“Ward’s after her,” Alisha said.

“Where are you?” Jemma suddenly asked as her wits tried to come back to her in the wake of her head wound.

“Rooftop with Fitz, Joey and Mack, waiting with the jet to get us out of here,” Alisha answered. “Here,” she added, “Heading to the basement level that’s two levels below us right now, that’s where Ward chased Daisy to.”

Jemma dropped to some of the dead soldiers nearby and searched for a weapon. She didn’t know what kind of guns any of these soldiers were carrying, normal or the ones laced with terrigen crystal bullets, so she wound up with her knife and another taser gun. “Come with me,” She ordered as she marched, unsteady at first, quickly for the stairwell hallway. “Find the others and make sure they’re alright. If you find Lily, you tell me immediately,” She said.

“Roger,” Alisha said, nodding. A third double broke off and headed for the cafeteria doors, itching to get into the fray. A fourth one broke off for the express purposes of searching for Lily. Five, six and seven pulled off and started in different directions to look for hospital staff to start evacuating the patients and staff. The building stopped all progress for a moment as it shook.

“Was that Daisy?” Alisha wondered aloud.

Jemma shook her head. “That was an explosion…” she frowned and turned to Alisha. “This hospital is full of unstable, new Inhumans.” She said. “They have guns with terrigen crystal laced bullets. We need to get this place evacuated before anymore of the new Inhumans busts out of their cocoon and brings the whole place down.”

Alisha nodded and splintered off into a few more copies. “I’m on it, chief,” All copies of her spoke at once and then gave a final salute before they dispersed. Jemma started for the stairwell again. She started down the first flight just as some foot soldiers were rushing down from the second floor. “Go on ahead, I’ve got this,” Alisha told Jemma. Jemma gave her a solitary firm nod and continued down the stairs at an even pace, trying not to rush too much if only because of her head wound.

\---

Daisy felt the wind get knocked out of her just before she landed chin first on the ground under Ward’s crushing weight. She gasped for air as he grabbed her and flipped her over onto her back as if she were a ragdoll. Daisy’s head spun. Ward was laughing, each low bark of it accentuated by an almost growl. His hand wrapped around Daisy’s neck, thumb and forefingers resting high up on her neck so that his hand was against her jaw, controlling which way she could turn her head or eyes and letting her get just enough air in to stay conscious.

“We always seem to end up here, Skye, don’t we?” He spoke in a low tone. His pupils were dilated. His nostrils flared as he inhaled and exhaled short, ragged breaths. He was injured, sure, but he was clearly on something much stronger than the adrenaline Daisy had shot herself up with. She struggled to get the scalpel tucked into her wrist gauze free while digging her nails into the hand around her neck. Her mouth hung open, and her body squirmed as it remembered the feeling of being unable to breathe from the woods. Ward’s free hand traced a rough, slow path down Daisy’s chest.

The unwanted touch made her recoil, repulsed. She thrashed about, trying to break free before he could choke the life out of her, or worse, before he knocked her out to continue with whatever his plan was once he found Lily. Ward leaned close to her just as the scalpel came free and she was using one hand to try and push the cap off of it. His lips almost touched Daisy’s and she could feel the bile rising in the back of her throat as his closeness assaulted her heightened senses. Ward clenched his hand tighter around Daisy’s neck. “When you see your son,” His gravel laced voice spoke in a low husk as his eyes locked with hers. “Thank him for the generous gift of power he gave me,” he smiled at her.

Daisy’s struggles froze. Her own eyes widened at the words as she struggled to make sense of them. Carter? Ward’s strength had come from…Daisy blinked and Ward let out a low, rumbling belly laugh.

“That’s right,” He said as he watched her face. His hand traced over her inner thigh and pressed between them. Daisy’s eyes stung with tears, first at the revelation and then at the pain that came when his hand reached the apex between her thighs and jostled the end of the catheter tube still there. “I know you were wondering where this strength came from,” He grinned. “Wanted to make sure you knew that the last living remnants of your son live on…inside me.” He chuckled.

Daisy’s face darkened. Horror gave way to anger as she clenched her jaw shut tight. Just as she was moving the scalpel, Ward dropped his mouth to hers and kissed her. Daisy struggled, thrashing about again. She bit down hard enough on Ward’s lip to draw blood and, when he recoiled, she bit so hard she wound up taking a chunk of his lip with her teeth.

Ward snarled at her. “This is why, we can’t have nice things,” He said as blood dripped from his wounded lip onto her collar. Daisy spit the piece of flesh back at him in defiance and ignored the lightheaded blur that came across her vision. Ward’s hand pressed upward from between her legs and passed over her stomach. He gripped his other hand tighter, fully cutting off all of Daisy’s air supply this time as he dropped his mouth to her ear while digging his other fingers into the flat of her stomach. “The only thing I’m going to enjoy more than killing you…” he whispered against her ear. “Is leaving Simmons alive to watch me break your daughter’s spirit…” He snickered. “Eventually…her gift will be mine as well…and there’s _nothing_ you can do about it-,”

In a flash Daisy’s left arm swung up, her wrist flicked to just the right angle and she slashed the scalpel across Ward’s arm as hard as she could, just above his wrist. She was sure she had carved along part of his radius bone as she dug it as deep into his flesh as she could, slashing as swiftly as her limbs would allow. Ward let out a blood curdling howl of pain as he fell off of Daisy. Blood gushed from his arm as he gripped it, breathing in harsh gasps, a rumbling growl accompanying every one of them, like an angry bull about to charge a bullfighter.

Daisy had rolled to her side, coughing and gasping for air. She scrambled, moving as quickly as she could to get out of being within arm’s reach of him as she tried to regain her bearings from the chokehold. Sputtering and coughing, she moved the scalpel to her right hand and pulled one of the epinephrine injector pens from her pocket. She bit down on the cap and pulled it off, spitting it out before she rammed it into the top of her thigh and let the pen click. There was a fleeting thought that sailed through her mind very faintly as the pen injected her with the drug, _Like father, like daughter too…_ She dropped the injector pen and moved to her feet. This was ending with Daisy knowing once and for all that Ward was dead and there was no way he would ever be able to come after her family again.

Enraged by Daisy’s surprise attack, Ward barreled at her as she was climbing to her feet. With a whoosh of air exhaled, Daisy landed on her back but managed even with the wind knocked out of her to keep Ward’s momentum going, using her knees and feet to throw him over her head and into the ground. She lost the scalpel in the scuffle but as the second injection of adrenaline coursed its way through her, Daisy let her anger fill every nerve in her body. She was on her hands and knees and then to her feet in seconds. Ward stumbled to stand and Daisy landed a sucker punch right into the crook of his eye and nose with a sickening crack that sent him stumbling backward. With a swing of her outstretched hand, Ward was sailing through the air and landing on his back, sliding down the linoleum of the floor.

Daisy advanced toward him. He struggled to his feet, hunched over and breathing hard. Pulling something that looked like one of the injector pens of adrenaline she had but smaller, from his pocket, he jammed it into his forearm with a grunt and then turned to level his gaze on her. The gush of blood from the scalpel cut that had sliced through his veins and muscles slowed to a trickle. Daisy paused, watching as whatever Ward had injected into himself began to race through his veins, coloring them a burning deep orange through his skin as he grunted and trembled just for a second. He was on his feet then, staring Daisy down.

The right side of his mouth twitched up as he held the small medical device up and waved it back and forth. “That boy of yours…he sure was strong, alright,” He sneered. “Such a shame the world didn’t get to utilize his true potential,” He chuckled. “Pure. New. Strong. Regenerative…” He grinned. He stalked toward Daisy with determination. Daisy ground her teeth together, her hands shaking with rage as Ward spoke about her son as a commodity – a drug to turn him into a better evil mastermind or whatever the fuck he thought he was at this point. Her lip curled into a sneer of her own and instantly she was in a rush to collide with Ward in a heap of swinging limbs. She wanted to feel every blow she threw at him. She wanted to make sure each one counted as they tumbled through a set of double doors behind Ward, landing punch after punch and stumbling whenever she failed to dodge a hit from him.

\---

Alisha Double #5 made it into the cafeteria area to see May and Bobbi fighting back to back outnumbered nearly seven to one. Each time one moved, the other countered, moving to keep their backs close together so they couldn’t be attacked from behind. Alisha glowered at the scene in front of her. Both women were sporting injuries, glaring red marks and bloodied wounds. Most of them looked minor so far as she could tell. Alisha brought herself to a run and joined the fray, along with a handful of more copies of her, working to pick off each of the attackers by evening out the fight.

It took some time, but eventually the three stood in a circle after Alisha’s copies pulled back into her to spread herself a little less thin, checking that all their combatants were laid to waste, breathing heavy, fists clenched tight, hands gripped around batons.

“Backup’s here,” Alisha huffed.

“Sight for sore eyes,” Bobbi grunted, jaw tight. Alisha tilted her head, arching a questioning eyebrow at the strain to Bobbi’s voice. May interrupted Alisha’s train of thought.

“What’ve you got eyes on?” May asked, already moving toward the door she had seen Jemma race out after Ward. Alisha and Bobbi followed, falling in step with each other.

“Jet’s on the roof with Mac, Joey and Fitz,” Alisha spoke. “Coulson and the team went for Daisy’s room but are rerouting down here now, Ward went after Daisy two floors down, found Jemma in the hall, she’s on her way down to Daisy and Ward – I’ve got some company in the stairwell-,” The building seemed to shudder again from an explosion a floor or two above them,

“Is that Daisy?” May asked, alarmed as she looked upward, even though Alisha said Daisy was two floors below them. She was calm on the surface but her brain was alarmed about a great many things and she needed to figure out where she was needed most.

“No,” Alisha shook her head. “Inhumans. Jemma said something about terrigen crystal bullets?” She said.

“They’re busting from the cocoons…” Bobbi’s voice faltered as she made the realization. She looked over at Alisha. “Hunter?” She asked. Alisha gave her head a small shake to let Bobbi know that she hadn’t seen Lance as of yet.

May spared a glance Bobbi’s way and then looked at Alisha. “Lily?’ May asked.

Alisha shook her head at his question as well. “Still looking,” She said.

“Stick with Bobbi. The two of you keep working on clearing the hospital. I’ll head for the stairwell and work my way to Daisy and Jemma.”

Alisha nodded. “I’m trying to find med staff to assist in evacuating patients. There’s…there’s a snake…very, very giant snake...” Alisha’s double gulped, audibly. “Why’d it have to be a snake…”

“Let’s go, Indy,” Bobbi quipped, having before only used the reference on Hunter and his aversion for reptiles. In the hallway, May turned for the stairwell and Bobbi and Alisha headed down the hallway in the other direction.

\---

“ _Snakes_?!” Fitz asked, shifting on his feet. “Someone’s releasing _snakes_?” His voice went up slightly on the last word.

“No,” Alisha snapped. “Someone _is_ a gigantic snake!”

“H-How…how gigantic?” Fitz asked, adjusting his grip on the automatic rifle in his hands.

“Gigantic enough!” Alisha huffed.

“Alisha, can you trap it in a room and get out of there?” Mack asked, his voice calm.

“Workin’ on it,” Alisha repeated her go-to phrase of the moment.

“I can’t believe you’re afraid of snakes,” Fitz murmured.

“You come deal with a cobra the length of a fire truck and fangs as long as my arm and tell me how afraid of snakes you are!” Alisha snapped.

Joey snickered. “He doesn’t know about Surat,” He said of a mission he and Alisha had been on in the past.

“Surat?” Fitz asked.

“Surat’s the reason Alisha won’t go on missions in India anymore,” Joey snickered.

“I will smack you for that later,” Alisha ground her teeth together. “It’s not funny!”

“It didn’t bite you!” Joey laughed.

“It _slithered_ up my pant leg, _in my sleep_!” Alisha shouted.

“That’s enough, Kids,” Coulson’s voice filtered through the com links in their ears. “Alisha, what level is the snake on?” He waited for an answer. “I’ll send you some back up. Give me a full sit rep,” Coulson went on.

\---

“Hunter!” Bobbi had spotted him while clearing the hallway on the floor they were on. Hunter was just shaking his head to jar his thoughts loose as he sat up with a groan of pain.

Bobbi rushed towards him. She landed on her knees in front of him. “You’re alive,” She gasped. “You’re okay, you’re-,” she reached for him after shoving her batons into their sheath at her back.

Hunter’s eyes widened when he realized she was reaching out to touch him. “No, wait, don’t!” He tried to scuttle back but wasn’t quick enough. Bobbi’s hands landed on his cheeks and instantly they both heard a sizzling sound before Bobbi had yanked her arms back to her chest instinctively as the searing jolts of pain shot through them. Her eyes were wide in shock. Hunter moved closer. “I’m sorry – I’m so sorry, I can’t-,” he started to reach for her, but stopped himself and Bobbi’s eyes widened again when she saw the bright white orb of color surrounding his hands.

“Holy shit, dude,” Alisha blurted when she saw it. Hunter blinked and looked over at her. “Uh…Welcome to the club?” she asked.

“What is it?” Bobbi asked gently.

Hunter was instantly agitated. He vaulted to his feet and Bobbi mimicked the action, backing out of his way. “Where is he?” He asked, looking between Alisha and Bobbi. His eyes cast along the hallway, frowning when he didn’t find Jemma where he’d last seen her. “Which way did he go? Where’s Simmons?”

“Hunter-,” Bobbi started, she put her hands up as if in surrender, wanting to reach out to touch him but unable to. Her palms were already turning red from the heat of the stored energy boiling inside Hunter. “Lance….look at me,” Bobbi spoke gently. “What happened?”

Hunter paced slightly and Bobbie noticed that the orbs didn’t react to his skin, hair or clothing when he roughed his fingers through his hair. That was good, at least. “Ward – he knocked us out and went after Daisy and Lily,” Lance answered in a rush. He was practically vibrating with anger.

“Okay,” Bobbi said. “We’re going to find them, alright? But…first I want to get you to the jet and get you into one of the pods…”

Hunter frowned. “I’m fine,” He insisted. “I can fight. I’m in control. I don’t need to be locked up-,”

“I love you,” Bobbi said. At once Hunter stopped pacing. He stared at Bobbi as her eyes filled. She tried to reach for him again but stopped herself just shy of it. “I already lost you once today…I can’t do it again,” she spoke quietly as Alisha’s double tried to give them some space and pretend she couldn’t hear them from a few feet away. With a slump of his shoulders, Hunter silently agreed. Bobbi, Alisha and Hunter set off in the direction May had gone to fight their way to the roof so they could get Hunter secured in the isolation pod before they would return to action.

\---

“That’s your problem, Skye,” Ward let out another sardonic little chuckle. He had her pinned next to the open door of the morgue incinerator. She could feel the heat from the edge of the door searing against the outside of her arm. Her adrenaline shots and her rage were no match for whatever potent cocktail – one that included some of her dead son’s DNA – Ward had injected into himself. There was too much turmoil happening inside her body to keep up with the stamina and strength needs of her fight with Ward. “It doesn’t matter what kind of righteous fight you’re in,” Ward went on. He leaned his face close to hers. “I’ll always be stronger than you,” He grinned.

“I killed you once,” Daisy ground her teeth together. She let her mind’s eye remember that day, let her mind bring back that pain…watching as he threw her very pregnant wife from the stage, watching as Jemma doubled over in pain, as May led Jemma away…finding out from Coulson that Carter was gone and there was nothing to be done to save him…seeing her son’s lifeless body…hearing the anguished cries Jemma let out for hours after she had awoken to the news. Daisy could feel her heart beating painfully hard against her ribcage. “I’ll do it again,” she grunted and swung the heels of her hands against his sternum with enough force that it threw Ward a couple of feet away from her.

Pulling off from the wall behind her, Daisy landed a punch to Ward’s jaw so hard that a sickening crunch echoed in its wake as Ward stumbled back to his knees. He dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out another injector. Before he could jam it into his neck, Daisy had ripped it from his grip, snapping three of his fingers at unnatural angles as she did. Her fist slammed into his jaw again as she shoved the injector into one of the pockets of her scrub pants. Ward tried to stand and Daisy grabbed him, a hand to either side of his head. She let her emotions reign in that moment, letting her anger flow freely down her arms and out through her palms, waves of vibration transferring from her hands to Ward’s head.

Ward ground his teeth together, grunting in pain. She watched as his veins as they swelled, bulging against his skin as if any minute all of them were going to burst free of their confines. His body trembled as the waves passed through him, hands attempting to clench against the pain. And then, without warning, the world began to spin around Daisy’s vision.

The adrenaline shots when they weren’t necessary were too much for her body. Daisy’s heart was racing too fast for her and it was preventing her brain from sending proper signals to her lungs to regulate her breathing in a way that would counter this sudden surging heartrate. She gasped, trying to force air in and out of her lungs so that she could force her heartbeat to calm down into a steady beat to no avail.

Ward struggled to breathe, on all fours next to Daisy. He shakily patted his pockets down and pulled another injector. Daisy wondered just how many of those he had and if they all were laced with bits of Carter in them. Ward injected it into his neck and, after a few deep pulls of air through his lungs, struggled to his feet, unsteady and clearly injured from Daisy’s attack. He wavered on his feet. Daisy grabbed one of the syringes she had in her pocket with her right hand as Ward grabbed her by the throat for the third time today and dragged her to her feet. Daisy barely managed as she struggled to breathe and maintain her balance while her vision spun, to pull the cap off the syringe and yank back the plunger.

“You can’t win this time, Daisy!” Ward bellowed, the rough gravel of his voice boomed through the room as he tried to rush them back across the room to the incinerator.

Jemma had come rushing into the room just as Ward was pulling Daisy to her feet. She grabbed the first thing she could find to use as a weapon, which turned out to be the top half of an IV pole. “WARD!” Jemma screamed his name as she rushed to get to them. With every ounce of fear and fury fueled strength she had, Jemma swung the pole. Daisy heard the swoosh of the metal as she ducked her head to the side and the pole sailed past her. It collided with Ward’s jaw in almost the same spot Daisy had punched him and he fell to the ground with a groan.

Jemma rushed further into the room, stepping over and past Daisy and standing in front of her with the metal pole gripped in her hands. Ward struggled, staggering up to his feet. Jemma swung at him again. Ward caught the pole and yanked it from her hands. Daisy could feel the lack of proper oxygen pulling her toward unconsciousness. Ward started to push Jemma toward the incinerator that had originally been meant for Daisy. Before he could get close enough to try and throw her into it, Daisy had managed to scramble on her hands and knees over to them. She swung the syringe down into his thigh and pushed the plunger down all the way, hoping that the needle might have hit one of his veins or blood vessels to cause an air bubble in his veins.

Ward grunted angrily and landed a swift kick to Daisy’s chest that sent her sprawling on her back, unable to fight any further as the adrenaline surged and kept her heart beating dangerously fast.

Jemma sent her knee swinging into Ward’s crotch. He doubled over in pain and suddenly his body because seize up from Daisy’s injection with the syringe. It threw him off enough to give Jemma the leverage she needed. She swung Ward around with a rage filled scream, smashing the side of his head into the edge of the incinerator’s door. With a forceful heave, Jemma own adrenaline surge was enough to allow her to throw Ward’s body into the burning incinerator. Ward’s eyes were wide as he struggled, his heart seizing up, his lungs fighting him. As his body instinctively tried to scrambled away from the fire and heat, Jemma slammed the head metal door shut on its hinge and locked the latch. She came face to face with Ward through the window as his bloodied hand smacked at the thick glass. Jemma pressed one of the labeled switches of the incinerator and never broken eye contact as she spun the dial to turn the machine to its highest setting.

There was a dark moment that welled within Jemma, deeply satisfied at the blood curdling scream that was came from within the incinerator. It was Daisy that brought her back from the edge of the darkness.

“J-Jem,” Daisy rasped between shallow gasps.

“Daisy!” Jemma spun around and was instantly by Daisy’s side. She grabbed hold of Daisy’s face as Daisy’s shoulders heaved. She was sweating profusely. Jemma could see her eyes were dilated. She looked all around at wounds- some from the fight that were already healing – a side effect from the injection they had given Daisy hours before. Her arm and hand were wrapped up. “Daisy, it’s okay – it’s okay. Breathe, you have to breathe, okay?” Not again, Jemma’s mind reeled. This couldn’t happen again. She spotted a tear in the thigh of Daisy’s pant leg and pulled at it to find injection marks on her leg instead of a fight wound.

“L-Lily…” Daisy gasped. She wanted Jemma to know where to find Lily.

“Daisy! Look at me! Look!” Jemma screamed at her, grabbing her face roughly again. “What did you take?”

“Epi-,” Daisy’s eyes rolled upward and Jemma brought her hand back and smacked firmly across Daisy’s cheeks, bringing their focus back with a sting. Daisy’s hand reached for her pocket on the leg of her pants. Jemma looked down and saw the attempts to find something and she dug her hand in to the pocket and pulled out the last of the epinephrine injector pens.

Jemma’s eyes widened. She looked at Daisy. “Did you…Oh, Daisy,” Her voice was choked with emotion. “H-How many? How many did you use?” She asked. Daisy held up two of her fingers. She closed her eyes and fought to take deeper, slower breaths.

“Daisy-,” Jemma broke off and leaned up, balling her fists and protectively moving in front of Daisy to shield her just as Alisha came bursting into the room. She relaxed when she realized it was Alisha, exhaling a shaky breath.

“Lily,” Daisy gasped out.

Jemma turned back to her. “Where, Daisy? Where’s Lily?” She brushed Daisy’s damp hair out of her face.

Daisy struggled, but she forced words out. “C-closet,” She tried to sit up and Jemma caught her around the shoulders to keep her from falling back. “Up,” She pointed to the ceiling.

“How many floors up?” Alisha asked. Daisy held up a finger. “On it,” Alisha assured Jemma.

“J-Jemma,” Daisy gripped Jemma’s forearm. “Go,” Daisy didn’t want Lily to be without one of them any longer. Lily had been through enough already and Daisy needed to know that someone would get to her before any one from Ward’s team could.

Jemma held onto Daisy. “I’ve got you,” she promised as May turned into the room having only been a short distance behind Alisha. “May!” She said as May came to rest on her knees next to Daisy.

“Simmons, I’ve found her,” Alisha blurted. Jemma and May both looked over at her. Daisy closed her eyes, releasing a few pent of tears of relief. “Med supply closet, one level up, fifth door on the right. She’s got her shield up-,”

“Did you say medical supplies?” Jemma asked. Alisha nodded. “May, stay with Daisy,” Jemma shot to her feet and rush to Alisha and started giving her instructions on what medication to find, to grab it and a syringe and to meet her in the stairwell with both. Alisha nodded and Jemma ran for the stairwell at the end of the hall. By the time she ran up the first to two flights, another of Alisha’s doubles had practically jumped down from the flight above her and shoved the items into her hand. Jemma spun on her heels, dashed down the flight of stairs taking them three at a time and raced up the hall.

Jemma came to a skidding stop on her knees at Daisy’s side. May had Daisy’s head and shoulders in her lap. She was stroking Daisy’s hair reassuringly, trying her best to somehow calm Daisy down to no avail. Jemma bit the cap off of the syringe needle with her teeth and tipped the bottle of medicine over, poking the end of the needle through the middle of the cap and pulling the plunger on the syringe back, carefully but quickly filling the syringe to a specific CC amount. She pushed the plunger until a bit squirted out of the end and then she grabbed the gauze from around Daisy’s left elbow and yanked it away. Her fingers pressed against the blood stained splotch there until she found Daisy’s vein and then she pushed the needle into it with precision and pushed the plunger of medication into Daisy’s vein, for the second time that day for two wildly different reasons.

Daisy’s eyes rolled up into her head again as two of Jemma’s fingers pressed into her neck to feel her pulse point. “Hold on, Daisy…just hold on…” She pled as they all waited anxiously to see if the medication would work.

\---

“Is she gonna be alright?” Coulson asked. He and May were standing next to Jemma in jet. The hospital had finally been cleared of Inhumans by a second extraction team. Those that could be contained had been put into their isolation pods. The bodies of those that couldn’t and had fallen were loaded into a separate single isolation pod as a precaution. The patients had been cleared and the local authorities were now in charge. Hunter’s isolation pod was nearby the open one that Daisy was lying in with Lily wrapped in her arms and a blanket tucked around them.

Jemma wanted nothing more than to join them. She nodded in response to Coulson’s question. “The adrenaline was too much for her system on top of the serum,” she said. “We’ll know for sure when we land back at the base and can get them into the medical bay,” They would need to have someone take care of Lily’s arm too. Jemma had to close her eyes and take in a deep breath through her nose as the anger at the thought of someone breaking her daughter’s arm tried to rush through her.

“Why don’t you go join them,” May suggested, reaching out to give Jemma’s arm a gentle squeeze. “We should land in another twenty minutes.” She said.

Jemma pressed her lips tight and nodded, grateful. She felt exhausted and weak from her own fight injuries. She turned from May and Coulson and walked toward the open isolation pod that Daisy and Lily were in. She paused momentarily and set her hand down on the back of Bobbi’s shoulder as she stood next to the window of Hunter’s isolation pod. When they had locked him in, Bobbi had realized that too much of his energy was collecting and he had nowhere to release it so, as a precaution, Bobbi had set the pod to put Lance to sleep. Bobbi’s muscles tensed and she started slightly to the touch before she relaxed.

“He’s going to be alright,” Jemma assured. “We’ll get him settled and he’ll be good as new as soon as we get him transitioned,” she reminded Bobbi. Bobbi pressed her lips together into a small grateful smile, one that Jemma recognized from her own expressions over the last week or so. She gave Bobbi a small nod and drew her in for a firm hug before finally turning to head into the open isolation pod.

Daisy was inside the pod, pulse at an almost normal rate. Lily was tucked in her arms as they both lay on a cot inside the pod. Lily’s face was buried into Daisy’s neck and collar. Daisy’s hand stroked along her hair and over her back. She kissed the top of her head every so often and murmured soft reassurances into Lily’s ear. Every so often, Lily sniffled or a tremble rolled through her. Jemma reached the side of the cot.

“See, Monkey,” daisy spoke softly. “Mummy’s here, I’m here…we’re all together. We’re going to be alright,” she promised.

Jemma picked up the covers and climbed in with them behind Lily. She pressed a gentle kiss to the back of Lily’s head as she readjusted the covers. “That’s right,” Jemma said as Daisy’s hand came to rest along her bicep and tricep, giving her arm a gentle squeeze. “We’re going to go to the base and the doctors are going to make sure we’re alright,” she said. “Safe and sound,” she brushed her fingers through the back of Lily’s hair as Daisy kissed the top of the little girl’s head again, both trying to be careful of Lily’s injured arm.

“Wanna go home,” Lily murmured miserably into her neck.

“Me too, Monkey,” Daisy said softly. “Til then, we’re gonna stay right here with you, okay?”

Lily nodded into Daisy’s shoulder and sniffled, resting her back against Jemma to snuggled between the two of them. Jemma felt her eyes filling. They weren’t home free, yet but she was overwhelmed to have her family in her arms and, though injured, intact and alive. Daisy reached up from Jemma’s arm and cupped her hand over Jemma’s cheek, her own eyes welled with emotion. “I love you,” she said to bother Jemma and Lily as Jemma turned her head just enough to kiss the heel of Daisy’s hand. All three of them echoed the murmur back and forth for a little while.

“Hey, Monkey,” Daisy said when it was clear that Lily was still too scared to relax enough to fall asleep. She leaned back enough to kiss Lily’s forehead. Lily’s tired eyes lifted and met her Mama’s. “Thank you for reading to me,” she whispered. Even though they were half-lidded, Lily’s eyes widened. Daisy smiled and kissed her forehead again. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner,” she said, mostly meaning that she had wanted to badly to wake up and come back to them. Lily buried her face back into Daisy’s neck and murmured another muffled, ‘Love you, mama,’ into it. Jemma’s eyes locked onto Daisy’s and searched them. Daisy whispered a quiet, “Thank you,” To Jemma, trusting Jemma would know that she meant about the injection. She leaned carefully over Lily’s head and brought her lips to Jemma’s in a quick kiss before the three settled in for the rest of the ride as a lumped all over limbs, hugged around each other.

\---

After landing at the base, all injured parties has been transferred to the medical wing. Bobbi had gotten herself patched up and had gone to meet Coulson down in the isolation room. Hunter was still inside the pod in the room. Bobbi assured Coulson that she would alert him and Lincoln when Lance awoke. Until then, she was going to camp in the room outside the pod to keep vigil.

Jemma stayed with Lily while Daisy was checked over and patched up. They removed what was left of the catheter tube. Most of the wounds that had needed stitches previously, needed the stitches removed because they were almost completely healed. The ones she had sustained within the last couple hours before they landed at the base were already halfway through healing. X-Rays of Daisy’s lungs had showed that they had gone through rapid regeneration and there was only a small section in the bottom corner of her lung that was till healing.

Daisy walked herself, steadily, albeit a bit exhausted, into the room Lily and Jemma were in, wearing a near pair of Shield issue sweats. She had grabbed the mini-injector that she had ripped from Ward’s hand before they had taken her scrub pants away as medical waste. Right now was not the time to talk to Jemma about that. Right now, the two had braced themselves for keeping Lily calm while they set her arm and wrapped it up in a cast.

Well into the night, nearing dawn, Jemma and Daisy were finally home. The agents that had been posted at their make sure everything was in order were relieved of their posts. Elvis was eager to rush to greet them, circles their legs and mewling as he sniffed the air to make sure all familiar scents were present. Most of the team had accompanied them and were currently occupying the house.

Daisy carried the almost completely asleep Lily up the stairs to the master bedroom while Jemma got everyone situated around the house. May and Coulson settled into the guest room’s two double beds, Fitz tucked in on the love seat, Joey and Alisha were passed out on the pull out couch with an army of cushions dividing each half of the bed. Mack slept on a folding cot in the area between the living room and dining room. None of them were prepared to leave the Simmons family alone after the ordeal they had all been through.

When Jemma made it to the master bedroom, Daisy had managed to get Lily changed into a pair of her pajamas (her second favorite pair, covered in _Rudolph The red-Nosed Reindeer_ characters), and had changed into her own pajama pants and t-shirt. She was lying in bed, sitting back against the headboard with Lily sitting across her lap with her head on her chest. Daisy’s chin was resting on Lily’s head and she was swaying just so to lull Lily to sleep while she hummed softly. Daisy’s eyes found Jemma’s as soon as Jemma crossed the threshold and shut the door most of the way behind her. Seeing Daisy sitting up, awake, holding onto Lily instead of unconscious and nearly lifeless with all manner of machinery keeping her alive pulled at so many of Jemma’s emotions. Before she could stop herself she crossed to the bed and sat down next to Daisy’s hip, facing her. Daisy was already leaning into the embrace as Jemma’s arms wrapped around them both as her tears began to fall.

Daisy pressed reassuring kisses against Jemma’s shoulder, neck and jaw. “Jem, it’s okay,” she assured her, breaking an arm free of Lily to wrap around Jemma. “We’re here,” She said, reassuring herself that they were really both in her arms. “We’re safe,” she kissed Jemma’s cheek. “I love you,” she added.

Jemma sniffled and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice cracking as she left a hand along Lily’s back and held tightly to Daisy with the other. “I just…I was so…”

“I know,” Daisy whispered. “I know, Jem. I’m sorry. I tried to get back to you,” She kissed Jemma’s cheek and jaw again. “I’m here now,” she said. “Thanks to you,” she added as she held on. “We’re gonna be okay.”

Jemma sniffled. “I love you,” she turned and kissed Daisy’s temple before leaning back and touching the side of her face as if to make sure one last time that Daisy was really sitting awake right in front of her. She leaned in and brought their lips together a few times quickly. 

“I love you too,” Daisy whispered as Jemma pressed their foreheads together. Daisy gently wiped at her tears. “Wanna get changed so we can lie down together?” She asked. Jemma was reluctant to move far away, but she nodded.

Within minutes, Jemma was crawling in to her usual side of the bed. Daisy had gently moved to lie down properly in bed with Lily set to cuddle between them again. Daisy’s one arm was tucked up under the pillows and Jemma tucked one of her own arms up under the pillows until her hand found Daisy’s and their fingers curled together. Arms wrapped over Lily and around each other as Elvis came to investigate and eventually curled up among the covers by their legs and purred himself to sleep. A few more murmured, “I love you,”s passed between them as reassurances before Daisy and Jemma were finally lulled into deep slumber, safe and sound, all three (four, counting Elvis!) together, with their family settled all about the house protectively.


	16. Variables

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Warning:** You want the sap? _You want the sap???_ YOU CANT HANDLE THE SAPPPPP!!!!
> 
>  
> 
> Happy New Year!! Sorry for taking so long with this chapter, had a few hiccups in rl that slowed me down. 
> 
> Hope you all had some lovely holidays and the new year's starting off well for you! I have seen your comments on the last chapter and am about to get to replying to them, sorry again for the delay!! As always, thanks for reading, thanks for the kudos, comments, feedback and love!! <3 <3 <3  
> :0) 
> 
> \----------------------------------------

**_2019 – December 24th_ **

Daisy couldn’t stop staring at Lily. It didn’t matter if Lily was awake, asleep, latched onto her while she was eating, wrapped up in her little blanket, cradled in Jemma’s arms, asleep in her bassinet in the corner of their room, red faced and wailing for reasons they couldn’t figure out since they hadn’t had enough time yet to figure out which cry meant what – Daisy couldn’t stop staring at her daughter, with the exception of the times when she simply fell asleep from sheer exhaustion from the whole ordeal a short eleven days ago. There was too much to memorize; all ten perfect little fingers, which balled up into tiny little fists more often than other except for one Jemma’s index finger managed to press a light little circle against Lily’s tiny little wrist and the heel of her hand causing those little digits to uncurl and clench onto Jemma’s finger. Or there was the way her light, scant fluffy patches of eyebrows moved upward and her mouth dropped open whenever one of their faces came close enough into view for her eyes to register by sight and not just sound that the human hovering near her face was Daisy or Jemma, as if she were trying to silently exclaim, _’I’ve been looking for you! Where have you been?!_ ’

The only thing Daisy loved more than holding onto Lily and talking or singing to her was watching Jemma with her – especially so when Jemma didn’t know she was being watched. If anything, there didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day for the amount of observation Daisy and Jemma seemed intent on showering Lily with. The past week and a half had certainly been a bit of a whirlwind. Daisy and Lily had been released from the hospital the morning after Lily’s birth. Coulson and May had picked them up from the hospital and the two had sat with Lily’s rear-facing car seat sandwiched between them. Daisy had nearly fallen asleep with _almost_ the same expression on her face as the motion-lulled Lily who hadn’t uttered a peep from the moment they had started driving. Jemma had reached a hand out to gently run the pad of her finger along Lily’s cheek. Her other arm was resting across the foot of the car seat so she could reach Daisy to comb her fingers through Daisy’s hair.

When they had reached the house, it was to a welcome party of the entire team, complete with gifts, food, hugs and kisses all around. Lily spent most of the day being passed around to all of her extended relatives, all of them eager to spoil her rotten with kisses and cuddles until she was just so tuckered out she kept falling asleep on them between feedings.

Everything from the moment Lily had first started crying in the delivery room up until this very moment, where Daisy was perched on the end cushion of the couch with her back against the armrest. Jemma was seated with her back against the couch, resting as close to Daisy and Lily as possible with Daisy’s legs across her lap. She was leaned to her side, an elbow resting next to Daisy’s head with her head resting against her palm, an adoring smile was stretched across her lips as she alternated watching Lily’s eyes sleepily blink open and closed, drunk on milk as she continued chugging away against Daisy’s chest and planting random lingering kisses against the side of Daisy’s head while the fingers of her other hand traced gently along Lily’s back and arm and against Daisy’s arms.

Just as Jemma was leaning in to kiss the side of Daisy’s head again, Lily’s lips stalled momentarily against Daisy’s skin, milk just barely seeped around her little lips, eyes closed as her body suddenly jumped with a hiccup. Daisy could _hardly_ be blamed for the giggling snickers that escaped her when it happened. “Go home, Lily, you’re drunk,” she said, eyes still watching, waiting to see if the hiccup would draw this particular feeding to a close or not while Jemma chuckled. Lily’s eyes popped open just after Daisy said her name. Her eyes studied Daisy’s face for just a moment before her mouth began to move again and Daisy let out another little round of snickers.

Daisy could think of no moment in time when she had ever felt so unabashedly happy, so secure and content as she did right then and since they had been home. The fact that she _had_ an actual, legitimate and complete _home_ and, on top of it, a _family_ still blew her mind and she wasn’t sure she the swelling euphoric feeling in her chest was going to subside any time soon. Tomorrow, they would have a house full of family, merrily celebrating Lily’s very first Christmas with them but for now, it was the Simmons three, cuddled together on the couch for feeding time, listening to a quiet Christmas music playlist, the room lit by the decorated Christmas tree in the corner of the room with a smattering of wrapped presents tucked under it already. Elvis had already given Lily quite a few initial inspections and had decided that the new little being that was roughly his size and made weird noises was okay by him and he was currently lying along the back of the couch just past Jemma’s head, intently watching them to make sure nothing out of the ordinary happened to make the tiny human distraught.

Daisy was smiling tiredly, beaming almost, as she tilted her head to lean against Jemma’s arm, though her eyes never left Lily’s. Jemma turned her head and kissed the top of Daisy’s and let go of her own head a moment to comb her fingers through Daisy’s hair. “Are you alright, love?” Jemma asked quietly. She turned her head to its side and rested that against the top of Daisy’s so she could keep watching the baby.

Daisy remained quiet for a long few moments, considering the question thoughtfully. It would have been so easy, and truthful, to reply that she was absolutely perfect and there was nothing that could make this moment better. In the very back of her mind, and surely in Jemma’s too if Daisy were to actually say it out loud, there was the tiniest voice that reminded her that there _was_ something that would make this moment better; Carter. There would always be space set aside, a small black hole abyss for the losses that had come along with their son’s death; they’d never get to see him grow up, hear him laugh, watch him wiggle about the way Lily did when she was cradled up in their arms, they’d never know what he would have wound up doing with his life or what kind of person he would have been. Daisy had made peace with the fact that this wound would forever linger in the darker recesses of her heart and mind. At the same time, Daisy remained conscious of the fact that, if everything that had happened to them along the way had not happened or if they hadn’t learned all the hard lessons they had learned together, they might not be here, in this present, with Lily. That was an entirely unacceptable trade off in its own right.

“When I made the decision to leave my van and join the team,” Daisy said when she finally answered, her eyes never leaving Lily’s face while the baby finished eating, speaking softly. “Not once did I ever consider that I would end up here.”

Jemma’s fingers combed lightly through her hair again. She didn’t have to explain that statement any further. Jemma understood it completely, at least on some levels. She had never envisioned herself here in this moment either but, before it she had had a family. Daisy hadn’t, not until she had joined the team’s at least. Now they had their own little family after a long, grueling journey. “I love you,” she murmured before she turned her head again to drop a lingering kiss to the top of Daisy’s head.

“I love you too,” Daisy echoed quietly. Lily brought the moment to an abrupt end with another jolting hiccup as she finished her meal. “You’re up, mum,” Daisy chuckled as she pulled Lily away from her chest and used the towel that had been against her shoulder to wipe herself and Lily’s face off.

Jemma grinned. She kissed the top of Daisy’s head and once Daisy finished wiping Lily’s mouth off, pull her arm free from behind Daisy so she could pick Lily up as Daisy held her out. She held her by her under arms, her fingers bracing the back of Lily’s neck and head as she smiled at Lily. “My turn,” she said in a cheery voice as Lily’s eyes struggled to focus on her face while Jemma held her up waiting for the towel. “Always my favorite time,” she smiled.

“It’s amazing how quickly you forget what happened last time you held her up over your head like that after she finished eating,” Daisy chuckled as she tossed the towel over Jemma’s right shoulder and spread it out.

Jemma grimaced only after she had brought Lily to rest against her shoulder. “I promise you the taste of curdled baby spit up will be forever burned into my memory,” She smirked and then cringed again as she shook her head and began to firmly pat along Lily’s back to burp her.

Daisy laughed as she put herself back together and pulled her shirt back into proper place before she shifted in her spot to cuddled slower to Jemma’s side. Eventually when burping was complete, Jemma wrapped Lily back up in her baby blanket and tossed the towel from her shoulder to the end table next to the couch and the three of them settled in to cuddle together again, talking to each other and to Lily until Lily had fallen asleep tuckered out from her food coma.

“Hey Jem?” Daisy asked after they had been settled in a long comfortable silence.

“Hmm?” Jemma hummed, pressing a kiss to Daisy’s temple before Daisy turned to look her way.

“Merry Christmas,” Daisy said with a small smile. A Merry Christmas indeed, Who could had ever predicted this outcome back when Jemma had used the mistletoe in the kitchen at the base as an excuse to kiss her, for tradition’s sake – Jemma’s alleged favorite Christmas tradition at that.

A bright smile lit across Jemma’s face. “Happy Christmas, Daisy,” she whispered before she leaned over to steal a kiss – not mistletoe needed this time.

\---

**_2020 – January 23rd_ **

Daisy woke up in bed alone. This wasn’t all that unusual. When she fell into too deep a sleep, Jemma would slip out of bed, if the baby woke, to get to her before she could wake Daisy. Daisy lifted her head and glanced toward the nightstand at the baby monitor that sat next to the clock. It was still dark, the sun just barely starting to ease its way up. She frowned when no sounds came from the monitor to let her know that Jemma was in with Lily. With an arch of her back and a stretch, Daisy pulled herself out from under the warmth of the covers.

With a yawn, she crossed to the door and moved to the hallway. It had only been a couple of nights since they had moved Lily into her crib instead of continuing to keep her in the bassinet in their room. As soon as she turned into the hall, she could see Jemma’s back as Jemma stood in the doorway of Lily’s room, leaning her right shoulder against the door frame and standing silently, her arms loosely cross around herself. Daisy’s brain woke up a little more as she approached, her bare feet softly padding against the rug that lined the hardwood floor of the hallway, and she realized Lily hadn’t woken Jemma up at all. Restlessness because of the anniversary date had pulled her from her slumber.

Jemma heard Daisy approaching but didn’t move from her spot in the doorway.

“Hey,” Daisy whispered as she stepped in behind Jemma and slipped her arms loosely around her waist. She turned her head down to kiss Jemma’s shoulder first and then picked it up and turned to kiss the spot just above her ear.

Jemma dropped her arms to rest along Daisy’s and leaned back into the embrace. “Mmm,” she murmured as she leaned her head back to rest partly on Daisy’s shoulder, leaning her temple to rest against Daisy’s cheek as she watched the crib. Daisy’s eyes followed the same track, just able to make out Lily’s sleeping form between the bars. She didn’t speak again to ask Jemma if she was alright. Instead, she just let the silence fall between them. They both knew what day it was; Daisy didn’t need to confirm that Jemma felt it. She knew.

“He’d be two,” Jemma spoke, breaking the long moments of silence that had fallen upon them.

Daisy nodded her head slightly and Jemma felt it against her temple. “Soon enough...she’ll be two,” Daisy gave a single jut of her chin toward the crib.

Jemma picked her head up off Daisy’s shoulder and turned it to look at her with a quiet gasp. “Hush your mouth!” she whispered, just the tiniest inkling of a smile trying to pull at the corners of her lips. “I'm ill prepared for that kind of time travel…” she sighed and put her head back down on Daisy's shoulder. She could feel the little bubble of laughter that left Daisy's throat.

“What if we wouldn't have her?” Daisy asked, “If everything didn't happen the way that it did?”

Jemma’s arms tightened around Daisy's on her waist. “What a horrid train of thought,” she murmured with a frown.

Daisy turned her head and kissed Jemma’s forehead. “Look how lucky we are, though,” she waited for Jemma's eyes to meet hers and then nodded toward the crib again. Had it been a very rough, winding, weathered and treacherous road to get here? Yes. Yes it most certainly had been. Would Daisy have given it up just so she could have spared herself pain? Fuck no.

Jemma opened her mouth to speak, but Lily awoke and began to wail, interrupting their conversation. Jemma pulled free of Daisy’s arms. She leaned up and placed a kiss to the corner of Daisy's mouth before she stepped away and over to the crib. “Good morning miss cranky pants!” Jemma cheered in the usual singsong lilting tone she used when talking to Lily. She leaned over the crib with a warm smile on her face and scooped Lily up by her under arms, bracing her head as she picked her up and showered her chubby baby cheeks in kisses before bringing her to rest against her shoulder. “Mama’s not a morning person either - you can thank her for that sunrise crankiness,” She continued to talk to Lily as she swayed, shifting her weight from foot to foot, commenting as if Daisy wasn't standing right there listening and watching. It took less than a minute for Lily’s cries to settle into random cooing sounds now that she had been picked up upon waking.

Daisy merely watched from the doorway with a happy smile on her face. Of course she would have wanted Carter with them, if it were somehow possible. It wasn't and of course that brought both her and Jemma some measure of sadness. But this was their life. This was their family. As far as Daisy was concerned, it was complete. She didn't know what the future held. Maybe one day they would decide to once again look into adoption, if they wanted more kids. But this, right here, the three of them; this was everything. It was the kind of everything that Daisy had given up on ever being a part of back when the Brody family had sent her back to St. Agnes. Now it was hers, against all kinds of monumental odds, it was hers...and it was perfect.

\---

**_2020 - March 20th_ **

“Jem-,” Daisy tried to cut in as Jemma was talking to Bobbi as Bobbi bounced Lily on her hip. Bobbi was trying to fight the amused expression that wanted to break across her face as she nodded to try and reassure Jemma that she was taking all the babysitting instructions Jemma was giving her very seriously.

“But if it’s the one that has the really high pitched screech on the end, that’s the one that means that she’s-,” Jemma was still going. In fact she had been giving Bobbi a detailed rundown of each and every single type of noise Lily could make and what it meant for almost ten minutes.

“Jem,” Daisy said again, this time stepping next to Jemma’s side and setting her hand along her back. Lily’s head turned when Daisy entered her line of sight and she wiggled slightly in Bobbi’s arms and let out a happy giggle. Daisy turned to look at Lily, a big stupid grin on her face. “Yes, my little monkey, that’s your mum making us late for our first ever post-Lily dinner date out!” She teased with a cheery singsong lilt that only made Lily’s belly rumble with another laugh as Daisy reached her free hand out to tickle her side. Bobbi couldn’t help the snort of laughter she let out before immediately biting her bottom lip and trying to give Jemma an apologetic smile.

Jemma frowned. “How can you be so calm about this?” She sighed as she looked at Lily and barely resisted the urge to reach out, pick her up from Bobbi’s arms and insist on cancelling the whole night.

Daisy could see the urge all over Jemma’s face. She had waged her own internal battle through the evening as she had started getting ready. It had been a mighty long time since they had had the opportunity to get dressed in something more than pajamas or sweats – or in something that wasn’t spotted in various baby-related stains – to go out for dinner just the two of them. So, even though there was a very strong pull to cancel dinner plans and stay in so they didn’t have to leave Lily, Daisy knew they both needed it. More than that, it was going to have to happen at some point and more than that, Lily was going to have to start learning at some point that there would be times when both she and Jemma weren’t in the same room/house/place as her and that was okay because they wouldn’t leave her for good or leave her alone. Just like tonight they wouldn’t leave her alone. They would leave her in Bobbi’s very capable hands and…Hunter’s…capable? hands too.

“Because I know everything’s going to be fine,” Daisy replied. “If there happens to be a cry that Bobbi or Hunter can’t decipher,” she said as her hand moved ever so gently along Jemma’s back attempting to soothe her fears. “They can easily call us. We won’t be far and it’s only for a couple of hours,” She said.

Bobbi nodded as Lily turned her head to look at her, leaning back slightly in her arms. One of her hands was fisted around strands of her hair at the back of her neck already. The other had been balled into a fist and was covered in slobber from where Lily had had it jammed up to her lips and had been sucking away on it. “That’s right,” Bobbi adjusted her grip on Lily and looked over at her. “We’re going to tire you out so much, you might even sleep through it when your moms come back, won’t we?” She asked Lily, widening her eyes and grinning to get Lily to mimic the big smile. Lily’s slobber covered hand swung out and caught the corner of Bobbi’s mouth and her bottom lip.

Daisy snickered as Bobbi wrinkled her nose but still pretended she was going to gobble up Lily’s hand, which just caused Lily to giggle again as Bobbi pulled her pudgy little hand away from her mouth. Jemma hesitated and shifted on her feet. “But, what if-,”

“Gooooo!” Bobbi ordered. She adjusted her grip on Lily and turned her further toward Daisy and Jemma. “Say bye-bye mommies, we’ll see you after dinner,” she said in a cheery tone as she helped Lily wave.

Daisy grinned. She kissed Jemma’s temple and then turned to Lily. “Now Lily, I’m trusting you misbehave for Bobbi and Hunter, okay? Give em all the bodily fluid explosions you can, kid! We’ll be back soon,” She teased as she tickled Lily’s sides and kissed her cheek a few quickly times.

“Now that’s just wrong when we’re doing you a favor!” Lance called from nearby in the living room.

Jemma wasn’t sure how Daisy could be so relaxed about this! Lily was barely three months old! They were supposed to stay home with her and be with her all the time to take care of whatever she needed and just to spoil her with cuddles and kisses, play time and story time! She felt Daisy’s hand on her back and her forehead creased as Bobbi stepped over to her with Lily. She felt her eyes sting even as Lily giggled and swung her wet hand out for Jemma’s nose. Was she going to cry? She was going to cry – how could she go out to dinner if she was just going to burst into tears?! They had to cancel. Daisy’s hand pressed firmly against her back and moved in a slow pattern. Jemma took a deep breath to steel herself and leaned over to promise Lily that they would be home very soon and that they loved her before she showered her pudgy baby cheeks in kisses.

Bobbi turned and headed for the living room, bouncing Lily on her hip and distracting her with a brightly colored toy that had a rattle inside of it which immediately drew Lily’s attention and made her reach for it.

Daisy slipped her hand down Jemma’s arm to her hand and entwined their fingers together. “Jem, I promise, she’s gonna be okay,” she gave Jemma’s hand a squeeze. Jemma took another deep breath and nodded. She let Daisy lead her out onto the porch. Daisy took great care to quietly shut the door, hoping Lily wouldn’t notice their absence until they were in the car so Jemma wouldn’t hear her if she started to cry.

No such luck. They had made it down the porch steps and onto the walkway when the loud wails started. Jemma stopped dead in her tracks and Daisy squeezed her hand tightly. Daisy _almost_ cracked, between the sounds of Lily’s heart wrenching wails from inside the house and the anguished (and accusatory) look on Jemma’s face, it was almost too much to bear.

Daisy frowned. “Yes. I’m the heartless one,” she confirmed and Jemma frowned further. “Jem…this is a normal baby reaction to being separated from us. It was in all the books you made me read,” she pointed out with a reassuring smile.

“But what if we’re traumatizing her??” Jemma asked. She looked back at the house. “What if she thinks she can’t trust us to keep her safe now?” She blurted.

Daisy blinked. “Jem…” She sighed and stepped closer. “Her brain is going to figure this all out before we even make it back home,” She said leaned over and kissed Jemma quickly. “She’s with people she knows well and they’re going to take good care of her while we let ourselves be gluttonous heathens for a couple of quick hours before we rush home to get back into our comfy pajamas and return to cuddling any trauma we may have caused out of Lily. C’mon, Jem – this was your idea, remember?”

Jemma’s shoulders slumped. “I didn’t think it would be this difficult when I suggested it…” She admitted.

Daisy grinned and let out a chuckle. “Well, you’ve already got some notes for your hypothesis, then,” she used Jemma’s hand to pull her closer and kissed her again.

“Let’s go run through some more variables so we can form a more complete report?” she said after leaning their foreheads together, dropping her voice low, suggestive.

Jemma let out a short snort of laughter and Daisy kissed the corner of her mouth. “Alright,” she conceded with an anxious sigh. “But this is not because you’re trying to seduce me with science-y metaphors.”

Daisy grinned. “If you say so,” she gave Jemma a wink and walked her to the car, opening the passenger door for her. She leaned over and stole a few more kisses before she shut Jemma’s door and jogged around to the driver’s side. Climbing in, she hooked her seatbelt and turned the key in the ignition. She glanced over at Jemma, who was staring a bit forlornly at the house. Daisy waited until she had backed out of the driveway and got them driving in the direction of the restaurant before she blindly reached across the console and brought her hand to rest on Jemma’s knee.

Jemma shifted at the touch but her eyes were fixed out the window, watching as their house moved further and further away in the side view mirror. Daisy kept driving, one hand on the wheel, eyes on the road and her other hand on Jemma’s leg. It wasn’t until Daisy’s fingers blindly caressed their way to the inside of her knee and started up the inside of her thigh that Jemma’s attention returned to the present. Her hips shifted almost reflexively as she blinked and turned to look down at Daisy’s hand.

Daisy kept her eyes on the road as she drove, but she had spotted Jemma from her peripheral vision when her eyes traveled to Daisy’s face. Daisy pressed her fingers in a particular pattern across a specific part of her inner thigh and when Jemma shifted and inhaled a gasp, Daisy let a wicked smile twist across her lips. “Variables,” she said with a bounce of her eyebrows, as if reminding Jemma this was now officially a science experiment.

By the time they had reached the parking lot of the restaurant and Daisy had pulled into a spot near the back of it, she had enough time to cut the engine and unbuckle her seat belt before Jemma had grabbed her by the sides of her face and was on her as if they were teenagers. Before they had ever made it into the restaurant, they had detoured to the backseat.

They had only wound up ten minutes late for their reservation but Daisy had actually banked on that when she had made the reservations originally because she thought Jemma was going to delay leaving longer than she did, so thankfully their table was still being held for them when they finally walked inside. It was a moon shaped booth tucked in the back of the restaurant that let them each slide in toward the middle so they could sit cuddled up close. Staying tucked close into each other’s sides helped keep Jemma distracted enough, though she had texted Bobbi three times to check on Lily before Daisy had leaned over, kissed her and swiped the phone, stowing it in her purse which was too far away down the curved bench seat for Jemma to reach.

Admittedly, Daisy had been relieved to see the reply messages which came complete with pictures – one of Hunter with a tight lipped, narrow eyed expression on his face, Holding Lily at his side while the opposite side of his face, shoulder and front of his shirt were covered in an abundance of spit up while Lily smiled around the hand she had stuffed in her mouth, one was a video of Bobbi playing peekaboo with Lily and the last one was of Lily in her little Yoda bathrobe, with the hood pulled up, leaving bright green plush ears sticking out at the sides, half asleep over Bobbi’s shoulder in their upstairs hallway. Daisy had given Jemma the same, “See, everything’s fine,” assurance after each one.

Daisy had, however, conceded that their dinner had taken longer than they had planned so she had agreed that they would order dessert to go since she knew Jemma wouldn’t be able to call this a proper dinner if she didn’t finish it with some pie. The walk to the car took a bit longer than it should have, mostly because each of them couldn’t seem to stop pulling the other into a string of kisses on their trek. Soon enough, they had pulled into the driveway and Daisy cut the engine. She looked over at Jemma after unhooking her seat belt.

“So give it to me straight, Doc,” Daisy said with a grin, leaning on her elbow on the console as she looked over at Jemma. “What’s the official experiment conclusion?”

Jemma pulled the corner of her bottom lip in and bit it. She leaned over until their faces were millimeters apart, their noses just barely touching, grinning when Daisy’s eyes detoured to her lips and then back. “There are more variables to test, I’m afraid, Mrs. Simmons,” she said, voice low and an impish little smile on her lips just before she leaned in to steal a few kisses.

It was torturous, breaking apart so they could climb out and head into the house after Jemma had gone and teased her like that. She waited by the walkway for Jemma to walk around the hood of the car before she slipped her hand into her wife’s while they headed for the door. Daisy followed Jemma in and helped her with her coat before she stopped at the closet to hang up both their coats. Jemma was already halfway to the living room by the time Daisy caught up.

In the living room, Hunter was practically strewn across the love seat, one leg thrown over the armrest the other lazily dropped to the floor. He was down to his undershirt because of the spit up incident. Bobbi was sitting on the couch nearby with a still awake, extremely sleepy and cranky Lily. Lily wasn’t crying, but her face was scrunched up in a pout, she kept rubbing her face on Bobbi’s shoulder and tugging at the slight tufts of hair at the side of her own head. Each time Bobbi had nearly rocked her to sleep Lily had jostled herself awake and looked around for both her moms before putting on her grumpy pout again.

When Jemma appeared with Daisy behind her, Bobbi let out a feigned gasp and turned as she stood up so that Lily would be able to see them over her shoulder. “Lily, look who’s home!” She said.

Lily’s tired eyes blinked as Jemma approached with a big, happy grin on her face that was possibly aided from the wine she’d had at dinner. “Hello, darling,” As soon as Lily heard her voice and she came close enough into view, Lily picked her head up and kicked her legs. She reached out for Jemma immediately and let out a whimper or two when it took a moment for Bobbi to hand Lily off to her. Jemma settled Lily at her side and adjusted the baby’s weight as she kissed her cheek. Lily swung her hand a bit wildly and managed to catch Jemma along the jaw just near to the corner of her mouth. Jemma turned her head and kissed the baby’s palm. “Yes, I missed you too! Did you have fun spitting up all over uncle Hunter?” She asked with a chuckle. Lily let out a happy little coo and slight chuckle to mimic the sounds her mum made.

Bobbi laughed. “I think that was her favorite part of the night,” she grinned.

“I think you planned that, didn’t you?” Hunter said as he climbed to his feet.

Daisy snickered. “That’s what you get for tossing her up in the air over your head right after she ate, dude,” She laughed as she stepped up next to the side Jemma had Lily resting. The sound of her voice caused Lily to turn her head, her open mouth resting against Jemma’s shoulder as she let out another round of coos and kicked her legs against Jemma’s side. Daisy let her eyes widened and dropped her jaw in feigned shock before giving the baby a brilliant smile. “Hey gorgeous,” She sung out, reaching first to wiggle two of her fingers along Lily’s cheek to make her let out one of those little baby half giggles. She grinned when the sound hit her ears and leaned over to kiss her cheek a few quick times. Jemma’s attention had been drawn to Lily and Daisy’s interaction almost as soon as it began, a sentimental smile playing on her lips.

“How was dinner?” Bobbi asked after smiling at the interaction in front of her.

“It was lovely,” Jemma said as Daisy nodded while continuing to entertain the newly temporarily alert Lily.

“Thank you guys, for babysitting,” Daisy spoke up with a grateful grin just before Lily’s coos became louder, wanting her attention back. “Yes I see you sweetpea,” she leaned over and blew a raspberry into the little crook of Lily’s shoulder that caused Lily to let out a giggly squeal as she wiggled about in Jemma’s grasp. It made all of them laugh - even Hunter, despite his unfortunate spit-up debacle from earlier in the night.

“Any time,” Bobbi said with a grin as Hunter stepped up next to her.

Lily leaned back slightly in Jemma’s arms and all eyes turned to her as her eyes squeezed shut, her face scrunched and she let out a long yawn. “Uh, ohhhhh,” Daisy said in the usual cheery singsong tone she used for Lily. “Somebody’s sleepy…” She chuckled. With a couple more chuckles and a round of hugs and kisses, Daisy walked Bobbi and Hunter to the door and Jemma carried Lily up to the second floor. After shutting and locking up the door behind Bobbi and Hunter, Daisy made a quick check of the first floor to make sure the windows and doors were locked, detouring to store their desserts in the fridge and then went back to the front door to set the alarm.

Finally she headed upstairs, where she found Jemma and Lily in Lily’s room. Sitting in the rocking chair, Jemma had Lily cradled in her arms, Lily with her baby blanket tucked around her and Jem reading her from a small, colorful book that had to do with the periodic table. Any time it was the book Jemma picked, it made Daisy smile. Daisy walked into the room and sat down on the rocking ottoman in front of Jemma and Lily. Lily’s eyes were half lidded. Every so often, they closed and then blinked halfway open again. Her eyes shifted back and forth between Jemma and Daisy with the rocking chair. Every time Jemma rocked forward, her eyes went to Daisy, backward, they turned back to Jemma. After the book was through, the two of them alternated singing Lily the rest of the way to sleep. Each time Jemma rocked the chair forward closer to her, Daisy leaned over and kissed the side of Lily’s head with a smile. In no time, Lily was peacefully asleep, breathing evenly in Jemma’s arms. They tucked her into bed and stood together at the side of the crib and watched her sleep for a few minutes before they made their way to the master bedroom, leaving Lily’s door cracked open as they went.

Daisy and Jemma silently went about their usual routines, taking turns washing their faces and brushing their teeth in the bathroom and changing into their pajamas in the bedroom. Daisy flipped the baby monitor on the nightstand on as she climbed into bed with a content sigh. Jemma turned off the light in their bathroom and pulled the door mostly shut as she headed for the bed. She turned off the light on the nightstand as Daisy held the covers open and she climbed in and moved to curl up in Daisy’s open arms.

“I’m sorry for stealing your phone and torturing you,” Daisy quipped as she kissed Jemma’s forehead as her fingers played along Jemma’s spine.

Jemma dropped a kiss to Daisy’s collarbone as she nuzzled into the crook of Daisy’s neck. “I’m willing to overlook your cell phone theft in light of the fact that you may have been right…” she murmured.

Daisy feigned a gasp. “I’m sorry, could you say that again? My ears are old, I’m not sure they’re working properly - ow, hahahaha,” Daisy snickered as Jemma shoved her shoulder jokingly.

“Har, har,” Jemma deadpanned as she leaned her head back to get a look at Daisy’s face in the dark. “I love you, y’know,” She said.

Daisy smiled and leaned over to kiss her. “Mhm,” She hummed between kisses. “I am aware,” kiss, “And I love you more,” Kiss, kiss and, heck, one more for good luck.

“I’m too sleepy for this battle,” Jemma joked.

“Unopposed victory,” Daisy grinned and Jemma silenced her whispered cheer with another kiss.

“Shhhh, she’s gonna be up again soon enough to eat,” Jemma tucked her face back into the crook of Daisy’s neck and kissed lightly at patched of her neck and collar.

Daisy adjusted the covers around them and held Jemma closer in her arms. She kissed Jemma’s forehead. “Sweet dreams, Jem,” She murmured and received a content hum from Jemma in response as they snuggled closer and closed their eyes, ready for sleep to claim them.

\--

**_2020 – July 12th_ **

“What was your first word?” Daisy asked as she sat on the floor of the living room. Lily was on the floor in front of her, set down on her tummy, pushing her chest up with her arms and lifting her head, turning it to keep track of Daisy as she moved around. Sometimes, Lily rolled over and couldn’t roll back without Daisy’s help. Lily had _almost_ mastered crawling, so occasionally, Daisy had to scramble up and follow Lily on her own hands and knees. There was giggling. There was so much giggling it kept distracting Jemma from her notes. Daisy was sure this was her favorite sound to hear Lily make amidst all the babbling, cooing, humming, babble-singing that Lily did.

“Arf,” Jemma answered after if this was completely normal. She had been on the couch going over paperwork, with notebooks and papers as well as a laptop spread out in her lap and the coffee table.

Daisy blinked and turned to look at her, brow furrowing. “...R-Really?” She asked.

Jemma stopped writing mid-sentence and looked over the monitor of the laptop at Daisy. “What?” she asked.

“Your first word was ‘ _Arf_?’” Daisy asked. “...Like...like a dog bark?”

“What?” Jemma blinked and stared at Daisy. Her cheeks suddenly turned bright red. “ _No!_ ” She replied right away with a shake of her head and an embarrassed chuckle. “It was what I called Arthur,” She wrinkled her nose. “Until I was five,” She added.

Daisy threw her head back and laughed, so much so that she wound up on the floor on her back next to Lily, who had rolled over onto her back. Lily mimicked Daisy’s laughter, which only made Daisy laugh harder and soon the two of them were basically rocking on the floor giggling madly. Jemma moved her work to the cushion next to her and slipped to the floor on her knees. She crawled her way over to both of them, braced on her hands and knees with a wide stance so she had an arm resting on the outside of either of them, one knee on either side of Daisy’s hips, one resting where Lily’s little feet kicked against her thigh with obvious glee.

“Ohhhh, you think that’s funny, do you?” Jemma asked as she looked back and forth between them, the two of them still giggling away. Lily squealed when Jemma leaned down on her elbow and tickled Lily’s sides. Jemma laughed at the delightful baby squeals of glee. She leaned over and quickly dotted kisses all over Lily’s face, neck and shoulders, which only made Lily babble, giggle and squeal even more.

“.... _Arf_!” Daisy snickered, still laughing, even more so as she watched Jemma and Lily interact.

“Oh hush, _you_!” Jemma smirked and leaned over this time to plant an array of kisses all over Daisy’s face, neck and collar this time. Daisy couldn’t help the case of the giggles that erupted from her throat, coming up from her belly, leaving Lily to mimic it.

Less than a half hour later, with Jemma’s work cleared from the couch and moved to the coffee table, the three of them were cuddling on the couch, exhausted from the exertion of all that laughter. Lily was already asleep on her back, tucked between them while they lay in mostly silence, exchanging adoring glances, fingers tracing patterns along arms, backs, combing through strands of hair.

“What was your first word?” Jemma asked in a whisper.

Daisy dropped her eyes to Jemma’s collar. “I don’t know,” she answered before she dropped a kiss to the top of Lily’s head.

Jemma was quiet for a long moment. She kissed Daisy’s forehead. “I’m sorry,” she frowned.

Daisy shrugged up her free shoulder as nonchalantly as she could. “It’s not important,” she insisted. “I get to find out what Lily’s first word’ll be,” a small smile curved up her lips as she let her eyes meet Jemma’s once more. “That’s what matters,” she said just before Jemma’s lips were on hers as if they could erase the sad facts of Daisy’s childhood. There were some days Daisy thought they could.

\---

**_2020 – August 19th_ **

Jemma and Lily were sitting at the kitchen table. They had Daisy’s laptop open and Lily was bouncing all around Jemma’s lap as the spoke over a video chat with her parents while Daisy moved around the kitchen cooking dinner for them and occasionally chiming in. Lily’s new favorite game was singing gibberish while swinging her sippy cup around wildly by its handle until it went sailing from her hand and crashing to the floor. Jemma and Daisy were trying to break her of this devious habit, though Jemma had more trouble than Daisy in scolding Lily for it because she claimed that the face Lily made was the face Daisy always made before she was about to disobey one of Coulson’s orders or when she was ‘up to something devious,’ as Jemma claimed and it never failed to make Jemma have to bite into her lip to fight off snickering.

“ _Lily_ ,” Daisy called across the room from the sink when she had turned and spotted Lily beginning the wind up for her pitch. Lily stopped. She looked at Daisy, who put her hands on her hips and shook her head in warning.

Lily looked at Jemma. Jemma arched her eyebrows and pursed her lips together for a moment. “Oh, oh…Mama knows you’re plotting,” Jemma sung out as her parents watched the other side of the video chat. Jemma bit into her bottom lip as Lily pressed her little lips together in contemplation, looking back and forth between her parents as the wheels turned in her head. “See! There it is, look!” Jemma turned Lily so that her parents would be able to see the look of deep mischievous thought that was etched over Lily’s face.

“I don’t make that face!” Daisy laughed from across the room.

“Yes you do!” Jemma laughed as she called it over her shoulder. She looked back at the screen. “Yes she does,” She looked at Lily, who then spotted her grandparents on the screen as they laughed and began to wave…with the hand holding her sippy cup.

“Hello Lily,” Mrs. Simmons sung out when her granddaughter looked her way.

“You’ve made that face before,” Mr. Simmons said.

“HA!” Daisy barked out a laugh.

“What?” Jemma made a face and shook her head. “I have not!”

“Yes, yes,” Her dad nodded and pointed at the screen. “That’s – Darling, that looks just like the face she made before she chased after that baby skunk, wouldn’t you say?”

“Ohhhhh, yes, I think you’re right, the poor dear,” Mrs. Simmons said as she chuckled at the memory. “You thought you’d catch yourself a kitty to take home,” she reminisced.

Daisy threw her head back and laughed at the story. Jemma’s cheeks turned bright right. “I…I don’t remember that at all,” She lied.

Daisy laughed louder. “You’re a terrible liar, Babe,” She chuckled.

“You would have gotten away with it until your father caught you,” Mrs. Simmons pointed out. “If it wasn’t for the little thing’s mother coming to defend her baby.”

“Yes, yes,” Mr. Simmons chuckled. “That was a mess of a time, wasn’t it? Took us hours to find something to take the smell off,” He nodded as Daisy laughed over at the counter.

“Oh hush, you,” Jemma said over her shoulder. “It’s not that funny…” She shook her head but was smiling.

Lily giggled in mimic of Daisy and then noticed her grandparents again and started babbling this time. The wheels were turning in her brain again, she looked at Daisy and then Jemma and then at the computer monitor and again because to swing her hand, this time with purpose. She actually pretended to be waving just so she could wind up her arm and swing her sippy cup around. “Lily-,” Jemma barely finished her name before the sippy cup was sailing through the air.

It landed on the floor next to Elvis’ food bowl as he was eating. With a great screeching hiss, the cat bolted, right into the back of Daisy’s knee and scrambled to climb up the back of her. Daisy’s knees dropped and she grabbed the counter to keep from falling as the cat dug into her back, made it to her shoulder and took a flying leap up onto the top of the refrigerator before he had nowhere else to go which led to him diving from the fridge to the floor and bolting from the room. Jemma had let out a gasp and covered her mouth with her hand. Lily’s eyes were wide as she watched the great cacophony of chaos she had created with her mouth hanging agape. Jemma’s dad suddenly fell into a fit of hysterical laughter at the bits of the scene he had witnessed.

Lily suddenly let out a triumphant roll of giggles. “ _Lily!_ ” Jemma scolded, though she did have to fight not to laugh. She turned Lily to look at her. “We do not throw things at Elvis,” she forced an exaggerated frown and shook her head gravely. Lily’s brow furrowed in confusion as she brought her hand up to her mouth and stuffed a couple of her fingers in and sucked on them .

Jemma looked over at Daisy, who was pulling herself back up to her feet by the counter with a grunt. She turned her arm to try and look at the back of it but couldn’t see. Jemma cringed. “You’re bleeding, Love,” Jemma told her with a grimace. “Looks like he got you good,” she sighed.

Lily looked back and forth between Daisy and Jemma. Daisy turned the water in the sink off and grabbed some paper towels. She bent her arm at the elbow and reached her back with the paper towels in her other hand, flinching as she brought the towels down against the back of her arm. She pulled the towels back to look at them and almost cringed when she saw the long blood spots on them. She pressed the paper towels back to her arm and went to retrieve the fallen projectile sippy cup with a sigh. She tossed the cup into the sink and opened up the cabinet under the sink, rummaging until she found the first aid kit.

“Mum, Dad, I’ll call you tomorrow, yeah?” Jemma said as she turned back to the computer. Her parents began to say their goodbyes and right in the middle of them, after having stared over Jemma’s shoulder at Daisy for a long time while Daisy was pressing the paper towels to the back of her arm.

Jemma turned Lily slightly in her lap and pointed to the computer monitor. “Say Bye-Bye to Nan and Pop-Pop,” She said, giving the monitor a wave so Lily would put her focus there. Lily turned and gave a distracted wave with the hand that wasn’t jammed into her mouth as she bent and straightened her knees a few times from where she was standing on Jemma’s lap.

Jemma was just about to repeat her instructions again when Lily pointed over her shoulder toward Daisy and pulled her hand from her mouth. “Mama,” she said as if she had been saying the word for months. A couple of babbles came after it that were pure gibberish. Everyone froze when it happened.

Daisy turned to look over at Jemma and Lily at the table, eyes wide. Jemma was staring at Lily with a similar shocked expression on her face. Mr. and Mrs. Simmons were happily chattering about the moment, asking if it was Lily’s first time saying it though, from the look at Jemma’s face, it had to be.

“Lily,” Jemma said as Daisy stared across the room in disbelief. She had been more than excited in waiting to hear Lily’s first word and had hoped she would be in the room whenever it happened, but she hadn’t expected it to be her name. Or, well, she hadn’t expected it to be the ‘mom’ name they had designated at hers. “Who’s that?” Jemma pointed to Daisy as she asked it. She looked from Daisy back to Lily with a grin on her face.

“Mama!” Lily said it more firmly this time, bouncing on her feet in Jemma’s grasp.

Jemma’s face lit up into a beaming grin. “That’s right!” She cheered. “That’s Mama,” she chuckled. Daisy was still gaping, a mixture of shock, pride and pure happiness all fighting for dominance over her facial expression. Jemma quickly said a last goodbye to her parents and disconnected the chat before she hopped up from the chair, “Who are we going to see, Lily?” she asked as she brought Lily to rest against her side and hip.

As they neared Daisy, Lily said it again, this time with a giggle attached to the end. “Mama!” It became a chorus on loop, over and over and over again as Jemma chuckled.

“I see what you’re doing,” Daisy grinned. She leaned over and kissed Lily’s cheek once Jemma was standing next to her with the baby. “You’re trying to make me forget you threw you sippy cup,” She said, the smile on her face brilliant as she beamed.

“Mama,” Lily repeated, reaching out and catching the first part of Daisy’s face her hand reached, which was her nose.

Daisy snickered and crinkled her nose up. “Lily,” she said in response.

“Mama!” Lily giggled. And so the loop went on for a few long moments before Jemma passed Lily over to Daisy to hold in her unscathed arm while she cleaned up the cat scratch cuts on the back of Daisy’s other arm and listened to the ‘conversation,’ Daisy and Lily had while she worked.

\---

**_2020 – September 27th_ **

It had been a difficult four days. Daisy had been sent on a mission. It wasn’t the first mission she had been on since Lily was born, but it was the longest and had taken her the farthest she had been away from Jemma and Lily so far. Jemma had emailed her a number of videos of the two of them while they were gone, but she hadn’t had much time to attempt any video calls. The mission itself…it had been a disaster. The long and short of it was that it involved a teenager, a suspected inhuman, who was listed as a runaway but they had found credible information that he had been kidnapped. They hadn’t been able to save him and for the last day and a half, Daisy had been unable to get the kid’s bloodied face and dead eyes out of her mind. Though she had scrubbed herself clean at least four times since then, she still felt like specks of his blood were dried to the skin of her hands.

The sun was just starting to make its descent into night when she pulled into their driveway next to Jemma’s car and parked. She cut the engine and looked down at her hands in her lap again for a moment. Daisy glanced at the house. She closed her eyes tight and gave her head a few firm shakes. She was not going to bring this into them. All she wanted was to lock away the work part of her brain and return to the family part of her brain. She pulled her keys from the ignition and climbed from the car. Tucking her keys into her pocket, she headed up the walkway and onto the porch. Pausing at the door, she took a deep breath and pushed everything from her mind but the thought of wrapping Lily and Jemma up in tight hugs and showering them with kisses. She turned the doorknob and let herself into the house, saddened almost immediately that Jemma and Lily didn’t seem to be anywhere in sight.

“Hey…I’m home,” She called out from her spot as she leaned back against the door as her mind started to backslide into the events of the last few days.

“We’ll be down in just a second!” Jemma called from somewhere on the second floor. She had wanted to be downstairs with Lily when Daisy arrived home but a necessary diaper change had throttled that plan. After finishing pulling Lily’s pants back on her, she scooped the baby up, holding her at her side as she headed out of Lily’s room and down the hall toward the stairs. “Mama’s home, yay!” she cheered as she bounced Lily on her hip and earned a few excited coos as Lily looked around at the mention of her other mom.

Daisy was leaning back against the front door when she saw Jemma coming down the stairs with Lily in her arms, both smiling as Jemma bounced Lily on her hip. “Mama!” Lily pointed when she saw Daisy, grinning and showing off a few of baby teeth that had been coming in for the last few months or so as she smiled and began to babble.

“Mama’s home!” Jemma repeated again excitedly with a few nods when Lily looked at her, most of her teeth were showing as she grinned. “Do we want to show her what we learned yesterday?” she asked, arching her eyebrows and dropping her jaw in a wide gaping grin. Lily had no idea what Jemma was asking but she knew her mum had asked her something and in all her excitement, Lily nodded her head up and down repeatedly, which made Jemma snicker.

Daisy tilted her eyes from where she had been staring at her hands. A small smile curved up her lips when Lily pointed at her. Her right eyebrow arched up. Before she could ask what Jemma was talking about, Jemma reached the bottom of the stairs and took a few steps closer to the door until there were just a few short feet between her and Daisy. She shifted Lily around and leaned over to set her on her feet, holding her up by her hands which were raised over her head. Lily let out an excited giggle when Daisy looked at her. “Hi Lily,” She sung out the words, unable to help the little smile on her face which grew wider when Lily let out an excited squeal and stomped her feet back and forth on the floor at the sound of her voice.

“Okay, baby, like we practiced – go to Mama!” Jemma released Lily’s hands and Lily teetered for a moment, Jemma’s hands hovering nearby to catch her if necessary.

Daisy’s eyes widened and she stood up straight from leaning back on the door. Lily’s feet moved and with her arms stretched up and out, hands balling up into fists, clenching and releasing, she went with the forward momentum that almost toppled her and ambled toward Daisy with unsteady little shuffles of her feet as she babbled Daisy’s name again over and over as she went. Jemma inched behind her, ready to grab her if she fell backwards.

Daisy let out a gasp and bent her knees to crouch down. She held her hands out, arms spaced wide so she could catch Lily if she fell but waited until she was a few baby steps closer. “You’re walking all by _yourself_!?” Daisy cheered excitedly just as Lily let out a few babbles and tipped forward, colliding with Daisy’s shoulder as Daisy wrapped her arms around Lily and scooped her up, pulling her in for a tight hug. She sat back on the floor as she pitched forward slightly and showered Lily with praise and multiple quick kisses to the side of her head, her cheek, neck and shoulder as Lily squealed in delight and wiggled in her grasp.

Jemma watched with a sappy grin on her face, chuckling at the scene before her. She could see in Daisy’s eyes that something was wrong, but not wasn’t the time to ask.

“Show me again, okay?” Daisy said as she set Lily on her feet, holding her by her sides under her arms. She kissed the side of Lily’s head. “Go back to mummy, okay?” She asked as Jemma moved to sit down in her spot, showing off a bright happy smile and reaching out her arms, waving her fingers to get Lily to angle her way. Daisy let go of Lily’s sides but kept a hand just barely pressed against her back, following her as she shuffled across the floor, cooing and giggling, back toward Jemma, who immediately cheered and pulled her for more hugs, kisses and cheerful praising. Lily toddled back and forth a few more times until finally, on her last lap, when Daisy pulled her in, she set her head down on Daisy’s shoulder and nuzzled into the crook of her neck as she let out a few more, ‘Mama,’ babbles. 

Daisy kissed the side of her head and swayed from side to side in her spot, holding on to Lily. “I missed you,” She said with a small sigh before she kissed her again. She looked over at Jemma, who pulled herself to her feet and held a hand out to help Daisy up off the floor. Daisy let Jemma help pull her up and once she was on her feet, she used Jemma’s hand to pull her over into a one-armed hug as she adjusted Lily’s weight at her side. Jemma wrapped an arm around Daisy’s shoulders and brought her hand to rest on Lily’s back. She leaned up slightly on her toes and closed the gap between them for a lingering, sweet kiss that was interrupted when Lily lifted her head and attempted to smack a kiss to Daisy’s jaw which was just a slobbery open mouthed collision to her jaw accompanied by a happy little coo. Daisy scrunched her eyes closed and laughed as her and Jemma’s kiss broke.

Jemma smiled at the two of them as Daisy turned and rewarded Lily with a cheek kiss attack to make her giggle again. She ran her fingers through Daisy’s hair when Daisy’s eyes came back to hers. “Alright?” She asked, the single word momentarily throwing the smile off of Daisy’s face.

Daisy smiled as one of Lily’s hands came swinging out while she sung out her little babbles, and caught Daisy’s chin. Daisy’s eyes turned toward Lily as she smiled again. “Is now,” she assured with a nod. She could talk to Jemma about what had happened later. She just wanted to be with them right now, to hold onto them both, knowing they were safe and happy; that was all she needed in this moment.

\---

**_2020 – December 13th_ **

The house was jam packed. It was Lily’s first birthday party and everyone was here to celebrate; their family, their friends, Jemma’s family via video call who Daisy had set up on her tablet and had passed around for everyone to chat with and to let them talk with Lily, neighbors and their kids – the house was bursting with happy people, balloons, food, treats and presents.

Phones were out in force trying to capture as many videos and photos as possible. They had just finished singing happy birthday to Lily, who had excitedly clapped along and Jemma had helped her blow out her candle to a round of cheers. Daisy couldn’t really help the overly dopey smile that had been on her face for almost an hour. Her cheeks actually hurt from it. She pulled the candle from the big cake as Jemma set Lily up in her high chair and snapped her bib around her. Daisy began to cut into the cake. She handed the first plate to May so she could carry it over to Lily and then she started slicing up the large cake so she would be able to hand them up to the eagerly awaiting kids and, in some cases (Hunter, Fitz) the adults.

“Why don’t you go enjoy the first of many sugar rushes?” Coulson said as he stepped up next to her and held out his hand for the cake knife. “I can handle cake distribution,” he smiled.

“Thanks,” Daisy was eager to hand over the cake cutting duties. She picked up a plate with a small piece of chocolate cake on it and turned to make her way over toward Lily, Jemma and May. She lifted her free hand to her lips and licked some frosting off of her thumb as she made it next to Jemma and handed her the piece of cake.

“Thanks,” Jemma grinned and leaned over to kiss Daisy’s cheek.

Daisy smiled at her as she pulled her phone from her back pocket. May had just put the small piece of cake on the high chair tray in front of Lily and Daisy had her camera pulled up just in time to set the video rolling as Lily stopped her excited kicking, hand swinging and humming. Her little eyes widened and she stared at the cake a moment. She looked over at May, her little eyebrows arched all the way up her forehead.

Lily babbled a few unintelligible words out and pressed her hand to her to her bib and said what sounded like a very surprised, “Me?”

May smiled at Lily. “Yes, you,” she nodded. “You can’t be the birthday girl and _not_ get your own piece of cake,” She said with wide eyes. It never failed to amuse Daisy (and sometimes Jemma too) when May turned into a mushy sentimental happy maternal mess when she was around Lily. Daisy couldn’t blame her. Lily was too adorable to be able to keep up the silent, stoic, angry façade around her.

The look of pure joy on Lily’s face when May confirmed the cake was hers was absolutely priceless. Seconds afterward, both of Lily’s hands were dug in up to her wrists into the cake and icing. Within a minute, it covered her face, her bib, the high chair tray, her hands and forearms as she stuffed it into her mouth a few times or licked it off her hands or arms. Bits of icing and cake were even in her hair and on the little bow that was on top of her head. Daisy was snickering hysterically, trying to be as quiet as she could as she recorded it. “ _Lily_ ,” She sung out her daughter’s name to get her attention as she filmed.

Lily stopped in her tracks. She turned in the direction of Daisy’s voice and when she found her mama, a big grin split across her face, covered in bright primary-colored shades of icing, her cheeks causing her eyes to squint shut. Lily let out a squeal of glee and giggled happily.

“Aren’t you gonna share with Nǎinai May?” Daisy asked. Lily looked over at May, who was still chuckling at the mess Lily had made of herself, and pointed when Daisy said her name. Daisy didn’t have parents. Well, okay technically her dad _was_ still alive…but he had no memory of her. So there were not biological grandparents on her side of the ‘family tree.’ There weren’t a lot of things on Daisy’s side of the family tree. She had learned long ago when she had joined the team that at a certain point it was up to her to pick her family tree. So, it had been a fairly easy choice to ask both May and Coulson how they would feel about being their baby’s other set of grandparents, way back when Jemma was pregnant with Carter in fact. Daisy had been surprised back then how quickly May had agreed without a fight. She had thought May would need some convincing, but it turned out she was wrong and so Jemma’s parents had become Nan and Pop-Pop and May and Coulson had become Nǎinai and Papa.

May looked over at Lily and feigned a surprised face, as if she were saying, ‘Oooooh!” to the prospect of sharing some birthday cake. Before she could speak a cake and icing covered hand collided with the top of her cheek and the side of her nose. Daisy and Jemma both began to snicker and as Lily stared at May expectantly for a split second before May scrunched her eyes shut and let out a genuine peel of laughter which caused Lily to tip her messy face back and laugh along with everyone.

\---

By the end of the night, Coulson, May, Bobbi, Hunter and Fitz had lingered to help Jemma and Daisy clean up after the party. Jemma was just seeing Fitz, Bobbi and Hunter out while Phil finished loading the dishwasher and wiping down the counters in the kitchen. Daisy had been carrying a pajama-clad, tuckered out and almost asleep Lily for nearly an hour. After she had said goodbye to Fitz, Bobbi and Hunter, she had carried Lily up to her room. She had settled in the rocking chair after grabbing Lily’s blanket to wrap around her.

She had finished a read through of Lily’s favorite Dr. Seuss book, _How The Grinch Stole Christmas_ and afterward, Daisy had simply rocked with her, quietly talking to her as Lily continued to drift off, cradled in her arms. She couldn’t help the way she smiled down at her daughter as her eyes roamed every inch of her face. She leaned closer and stage whispered to the sleeping Lily, “Nǎinai’s a quiet sneaky ninja…but I still know she’s lingering in the doorway watching it,” before she sat up straighter in her seat with a lopsided grin and looked over toward the doorway.

The right corner of May’s mouth twitched up as she pulled up from leaning against the door frame and stepped into the room. She smiled a little more freely as she headed for the padded rocking ottoman in front of the rocking chair and sat down on it similar to the way Daisy always sat down on it whenever Jemma was in the rocking chair with Lily. Daisy smiled back. She couldn’t help, either, that it made her happy that Lily brought May’s guard down more often than she had seen anything else do it, except for maybe Coulson but that was a whole other ballgame.

“Is it everything you hoped it would be?” May asked quietly as she alternated watching Daisy’s face and glancing at Lily.

“Is what?” Daisy asked, stopping her rocking to lean forward in the chair so she could pass Lily over to her. Daisy moved to stand so May could move into the rocking chair with Lily to keep her lulled asleep. It was too soon to put Lily down in the crib. She would wake up having noticed the rocking stopped if she wasn’t deeply asleep before they laid her down. Daisy sat down on the ottoman.

“Having a family,” May replied, looking from Lily’s face over to Daisy.

Daisy’s eyes were on what she could see of Lily’s face from her spot. Her brow was furrowed thoughtfully as she pondered that loaded question. She inhaled a deep breath through her nose. “It’s much, much more than that,” she lifted her eyes to May’s and gave her a small smile. “But it’s always been that way…since I found all of you,” She was aware that she had found her family before she and Jemma had gotten married and started on their long journey to Lily and she wanted May to know that.

May smiled knowingly. She looked back down at Lily. “Yeah,” she said softly, “we love you too.”

Though she followed it up with a stern warning look to tell Daisy that she’d better not let it leak that her heart light was showing, Daisy beamed a smile her way. “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me, Nǎinai – I won’t let the world know you’re a marshmallow at heart,” she teased quietly.

May smirked a bit as she watched the baby. “In turn, I’ll be sure Lily doesn’t find out about your disobedient brat phase,” She teased right back.

Daisy bit her bottom lip and stifled a snicker. “Yeah,” she used May’s own sentimental words back on her. “We love you too,” she spoke for the three of them, herself, Lily and Jemma as she and May exchanged another set of shamelessly sappy little smiles.


	17. Peanut Monkey Chips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Forewarning:**...actually I don't think I have any for this chapter?? Sap, sadness, little bit of tense convos
> 
> My sincerest apologies for how long this chapter took. I had finished 90% of it by Monday last week but I had a minor family emergency that sidelined me for multiple days (everyone/thing's okay though, phew!!) and then I got snowed in here on the Eastern Seaboard for the Blizzard Snowpocalypse over the last three days or so days (you should see the 5-foot+ snow drifts I still need to clear off of parts of my house to make them accessible......0.0)
> 
> I don't think I can rate this on the PEFAS! ;o) It's the longest chapter I think I've done so far...and there was more I wanted to tack on to the end of this chapter but the snow and the fam stuff discombobulated me a bit so it'll have to wait until after the next flashback chap!
> 
> Thank you to everyone for your patience, for coming along for the ride, for leaving feedback, comments, love and kudos! Feel free to drop by and say hi (or not!) and I will slowly make my way through all the comments I haven't yet gotten to properly reply to, I promise!!  
> Have a great week and be safe!!!! :o)  
> <3<3<3 
> 
> \--------------

Daisy felt someone staring at her. It was a distinct feeling, that she was being watched. Even as she fought to hold on to a few more minutes of sleep despite the ache in her muscles and deep into her bones that had been steadily pulling her from sleep for at least an hour, it was the feeling of being watched that really pulled her brain from the fog. Well, it was that and also the sudden light poke of a finger to the side of her bruised neck that made her inhale a sharp breath through her nose. Her eyes popped open and the first thing she saw was Lily’s face on the pillow in front of her. Just past Lily was Jemma’s still slumbering form. Both Jemma and Daisy had an arm strewn across Lily and wrapped loosely around the other.

Lily stared intently at Daisy and Daisy couldn’t quite read the look on her daughter’s face but she did see there was still fear in Lily’s eyes. Her forehead was pulled into a mess of little wrinkles and there was a frown on her lips. “Hey, Monkey,” Daisy spoke softly and gave Lily a small smile. She leaned her face closer and kissed the tip of Lily’s nose as she brought her hand up to brush some of Lily’s dark hair out of her face. “Can’t sleep?” she asked. Daisy wasn’t sure what time it was, but the sun was up already. Lily shook her head. “Bad dream?” Daisy pressed. Lily’s bottom lip came jutting out but she didn’t nod or shake her head. Daisy took that as a yes. She nodded and kissed Lily’s forehead just before Lily scooted closer and buried her face into Daisy’s neck and collarbone.

“Shhh, I know,” Daisy murmured as she leaned her chin against the side of Lily’s head. She shifted and moved her arm around Lily, ran her hand in small circles and up and down Lily’s back. “We’re safe now, sweetheart. Mummy and I won’t let anything happen to you.” She promised. “It’s okay to be afraid…” she leaned back, combing her hand through Lily’s hair and scooting down on the bed a bit to catch Lily’s eyes. “I’m scared too,” she admitted. “But,” she added as she gently traced her fingers along the side of Lily’s face. “You, me, Mummy…we’re going to be alright, D’you know why?” She asked.

Lily shook her head back and forth. She cradled her casted arm close to her chest with her other arm and Daisy made a mental note to ask her if it hurt once she had set Lily’s mind at ease somehow. “Because we’re going to get through all of this together,” Daisy said with a small smile. “Okay?” She brushed her fingers through Lily’s hair once more.

Lily nodded and curled into her embrace again. Daisy kissed the top of her head. She shifted slightly and rolled onto her back so she could bring Lily to rest along her chest and stomach. “Does your arm hurt, sweetie?” she asked after a few long moments of pressing her hand in calm, gentle patterns along Lily’s back, hoping she might lull her back to sleep, but Lily resisted, jostling herself awake whenever she thought she dozed too far into sleep. Lily nodded again and this time let out a miserable little whimper that made Daisy’s heart clench in her chest. She was about to say she’d go and get Lily something for the pain when Lily’s stomach let out a mighty, empty, grumble of noise.

Daisy let out a soft chuckle. “Hungry?” she asked. Lily lifted her head from Daisy’s chest and looked at her this time before she nodded. Daisy smiled. “Okay, let’s get you some breakfast,” She brought her hand to rest gently on the side of Lily’s face, relieved that it didn’t feel like she had a fever at all. “Cereal?” she asked. Lily shook her head and frowned. “Waffles?” Daisy suggested and Lily’s tummy grumbled again. “Waffles it is,” she lifted her head and kissed Lily’s forehead. With a deep breath to prepare her, she wrapped her arms around Lily, one arm resting under her rear and the other around her back, and she sat him, stifling a groan of pain as she did.

Next to them Jemma inhaled a deep breath and shifted. She let out a small grumble of a murmur and Daisy leaned over to kiss her forehead. Jemma inhaled a sharper breath. Her eyes popped open and she was leaning up on her elbow almost instantly, bleary eyes glancing around. “Hmm? What? What’s wrong?” She murmured, eyes still crusted with sleep, puffy and dark rimmed from the past week or so of trauma she had survived.

“Jem, it’s okay,” Daisy shifted Lily’s weight to the arm under her rear as Lily kept her head laid down miserably against Daisy’s shoulder, a frown cemented onto her face as her eyes looked outward past her mama’s shoulder. Daisy brought her free hand to rest along the side of Jemma’s face. “Sorry to wake you,” she leaned over and dropped a quick peck to Jemma’s lips – morning breath be damned – before she spoke again. “I’m going down to start getting breakfast ready. I just wanted to let you know so you didn’t wake up alone without warning,” she said as Jemma’s half-lidded eyes came into better focus. “Go back to sleep, I’ll wake you when it’s ready,” she gave Jemma a smile.

“Okay…” Jemma said, exhausted and weary from all she had had to endure. She took in a breath and Daisy knew she was preparing a protest.

Before she could, Daisy hunched her shoulder up and down a time or two. “Lily, quick, give mummy kisses before she falls back asleep, oh noooo,” she said in a cheerful, exaggerated whisper as she tipped over toward Jemma. Just as Jemma was attempting to protest again, Lily picked her head up and leaned over. She covered the side of Jemma’s face that wasn’t pressed into her pillow with a random kiss attack the likes of which Daisy or Jemma would have done to her.

Jemma’s face scrunched and she let out a startled round of chuckles and managed to free her hand from the covers. She caught Lily gently by the side of her face and stopped her kiss attack with a quick couple of bumps of their noses together. “I love you too,” She said. She lifted her head enough to deliver two quick kisses to her cheek before she offered a sleepy smile. Lily finally smiled, just a little bit, as Daisy kissed the other side of her head.

“Okay, we’re off,” Daisy said with a small smile. She adjusted her grip on Lily but tried not to jostle her too much. She pulled the covers back over Jemma and leaned down for one last quick kiss. “Sleep,” she ordered before she climbed from the bed, her joints cracking in protest as she went. Was she in pain and still worn out as well? You bet your ass she was, but Jemma had spent days and days awake and worrying over her and Lily. She wasn’t going to lie down on the job any longer now that she had control over whether or not she was awake at any given time.

On the way out of the room, she spotted the clock and saw that it was just past seven, so she kept as quiet as she could while talking to Lily as she carried her to the first floor. She detoured to the small bathroom that was back by the laundry room and entrance to the garage so they could use the toilet and wash their hands without disturbing anyone. Daisy did her best to avoid looking at whatever remained of her injuries in the mirror while they were in there and soon enough she was carrying Lily to the kitchen.

She sat Lily, for now, on the open counter space of the island in the kitchen that held the sink and a breakfast bar with stools. Leaning a hand on either side of Lily, she leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Hmmmm,” she said, narrowing her eyes once she had pulled back, leveling her gaze on her daughter. “What…kind of waffles…does my favorite little monkey want?” she asked, though she knew what Lily would request; banana, peanut butter and chocolate chip. It was a rarity when she actually got the full combo for her waffles, since Jemma insisted it was saved for special occasions because of the decadent nature of the combo. Daisy thought it was definitely deserved today. She just hoped she had everything necessary to make them.

Sure enough Lily perked up a bit and sat up a little straighter. “Peanut monkey chips!” She said as her eyebrows arched and she looked at Daisy with a hopeful little grin instead of the sad, frightened pout she had had when Daisy first woke up.

“Peanut monkey chips!” Daisy replied enthusiastically. “I never would have guessed that!” She teased, reaching out to gently jokingly tickle Lily’s sides. Lily squirmed in her spot and wrapped her arms around Daisy’s neck. Daisy pulled her up off the counter and headed for the fridge first, hoping between that and the pantry she’d have enough of what she needed.

She swayed a bit with Lily resting against her hip, pulling ingredients and items from the fridge pantry and cabinet. Thankfully, the team that had been at the house had been under instructions to stock it before they left. That was a big relief. She couldn’t imagine having to wake someone up to run for groceries or to watch Lily while she ran for some. While she mixed up the batter in a large bowl with a hand beater, Lily sat on the counter next to her, with Daisy’s hip leaning against the counter between her legs just to make sure she didn’t slip off the counter.

Just as she was handing Lily an extra half of banana to let her eat while she started working on spraying the waffle maker to get the first batch set up, May entered the kitchen from the door that led to the backyard. Daisy jumped slightly when she saw the movement out of the corner of her eye, but relaxed and exhaled a slow breath through her nose as Lily grinned around a mouthful of banana and exclaimed an _almost_ excited, “Hi Nǎinai!” as she waved the hand of her cast free hand.

Daisy smiled, at Lily. “Nǎinai wakes up before the sun,” she said with a teasing grin. “Isn’t that silly?” It was worth the effort, ignoring her aches and pains and pushing her concerns and anxiety down internally so that she could instead make things as normal as possible for Lily. She didn’t want to pretend nothing had happened, but whatever normalcy she could inject between any of the emotional bouts of what they had been through fought their way back in…it was worth it.

May’s stoic expression, the one that she put on most of the time, that Daisy had learned to recognize the small cracks of concern that bled through the façade over the years, shifted and softened when she spotted Lily just as Lily was saying her name. The corners of her mouth twitched upward as Lily giggled at Daisy’s joke. “Your Mama used to join me that early for training,” She quipped as she walked over toward them.

Without comment, May brought a hand to rest gently on Daisy’s closest shoulder to Lily. She gave it a small squeeze and let go when Lily reached for her. Daisy stepped to the side and May hooked Lily carefully under her arms and picked her up from the counter. She brought Lily to rest against her hip and Lily set her head down on May’s shoulder almost instantly as she stuffed the last piece of banana into her mouth to chew on it. May stepped back as Daisy kept working. She swayed unconsciously from side to side with Lily, running on hand over her back.

Daisy didn’t have to look to know that it was happening, or to know that May was gently resting her head down against Lily’s. Anyone could say what they wanted about May and how badass she was or about her cold façade or whatever else, but Daisy knew better. Daisy and Jemma had something that May had been robbed of as a result of the fallout from what she had witnessed and what she had to do in Bahrain. They had their daughter, a child of their own. The only small consolation to this knowledge that Daisy and Jemma had had to offer was that May was part of their family in a major way. Maybe they couldn’t fix the past and what she’d had to give up, but they could fill her present and future with hugs, kisses, giggles and drawings, and all manner of heart-melting adorable antics and presents from on lucky little grandchild that she was free to spoil absolutely rotten. May had been unable to resist letting Lily in past all her defenses since the very first time she had held her as a baby in the hospital and had immediately broken into a proud, beaming, doting grin down at the little girl.

Even though there were occasionally moments where it would have been easy to tease May about her easy change of mood whenever she was around Lily, or the fact that she actually _had_ a specific tone for talking to Lily that was nothing but enthusiastic and warm, Daisy did so sparingly. She chose her battles carefully because she didn’t want to turn May off from expressing such things to Lily. Daisy and Jemma had meant it when they had asked May and Coulson if they’d be willing to share grandparenting duties and though teasing was obviously allowed among family, Daisy didn’t want May to think they were seriously mocking her ability to show Lily affection.

May spoke quietly to Lily, asking her how her arm was before she started to distract her with unrelated questions. Soon enough the first plate of waffles was finished and Daisy handed it over to May, who took it to the table to set Lily up in her booster seat. She cut the waffles for Lily and then poured syrup on for her before going to find her cup and fill it with orange juice. She settled at the table with Lily and a bowl of fruit from the fridge.

As Daisy continued cooking, the rest of their various houseguests started to stumble in. Mack shooed Daisy away from cooking and took over. Once waffles were done, he moved on to making scrambled eggs and bacon. Alicia was the next to stumble in blearily; having roused at the smell of the pot of coffee that Daisy had set brewing. By the time she reached the kitchen, Daisy was already handing a filled mug out to her. Joey and Fitz staggered in next, both still stretching and rubbing crust from their eyes. Fitz turned his nose up at the offered coffee that Joey gladly accepted and went for the cabinet where he knew Jemma kept her tea and Daisy grabbed the kettle to fill it and get it going on the stove, enough for two cups so she’d have one to give Jemma. Coulson joined them next, greeted by jokes about how he had timed it perfectly to arrive when all the cooking was finished.

Daisy watched as most of the mass of people considered family settled around the kitchen and connected dining room, eating, chatting lightly and laughing with each other. Aside from the still sleeping Jemma, Hunter and Bobbi were missing from this respite. Daisy asked Mack for his phone and excused herself to the living room so she could call Bobbi and check on both of them. After a quick conversation, she hung up and headed back into the kitchen to pour herself another mug of coffee after tossing Mack’s phone back to him. When she finished pouring her mug, she began to set up Jemma’s cup of tea with the intention of bringing it up with her to go wake Jemma.

Jemma beat her to it, though, padding into the kitchen with her hair adjusted so it was pulled into a loose messy pony tail. She had one of Daisy’s zip up hoodies pulled around her and zipped midway up from the bottom. She was yawning into the back of her hand as she ambled toward Daisy. Daisy grabbed the finished mug of tea and held it out to Jemma with a small smile. Jemma’s eyes opened a bit wider when she saw it. “Mmm,” she hummed as she accepted the mug, grabbing it by the handle with one hand and wrapping her other hand around the warm curve of the mug. “Thank you,” She murmured, tucking into Daisy’s side as Daisy was leaning into the corner section of the kitchen’s counter. She took a sip from the mug and then laid her head down on Daisy’s shoulder. “You’ve come a long way since the first time you attempted to make me tea,” Jemma murmured.

Daisy held her coffee mug in one hand and moved her other arm around Jemma when she leaned into her side, sliding her hand up and down Jemma’s back. She chuckled into Jemma’s hair when Jemma spoke just as she was dropping a kiss to the top of her head. “I had a very stern teacher,” she said. Jemma kissed the side of her neck and nuzzled closer into Daisy’s side.

“How is she?” Jemma asked as she looked into the dining room at the scene playing out before them. Lily was in her usual spot, in her booster seat and it looked like she was playing on an iPad. Fitz sat to one side of her, May to the other. Coulson and the others lined each side of the dining room table in its chairs and in stools from the kitchen counter bar.

“She’s scared,” Daisy answered, trying not to frown too much as the honesty made Jemma press tighter to her side. “Fitz has her playing Tetris…”

“Tetris?” Jemma asked, sounding confused.

Daisy shrugged and nodded as she sipped from her mug. “He said something about studies showing that people who played Tetris directly after or very close after having a traumatic experience had…you’ll have to ask him for the exact scientific reasoning but the dumbed down version he gave me when my eyes glazed over during his explanation was that it would help prevent her brain was forming lasting post-traumatic side effects from the memories of the experience.” She explained. “He said he had her doing it in the hospital too…when I was under,” she added.

Jemma shuddered as she thought about Daisy lifelessly hooked up to the hospital equipment again. “Oh, right,” she nodded. “I forgot about that,” she lifted her head slightly to take a sip from her mug.

Daisy kissed the side of her head. “We’re gonna be okay, Jem,” She assured as she squeezed her arm around Jemma’s shoulders.

“I know,” Jemma said softly in response. She wasn’t entirely convinced just yet, but Daisy could understand why, after everything. She turned her head to look up at Daisy. “What is it?” She asked. Daisy arched her eyebrows curiously. “What is it that you’re not saying?” Jemma clarified.

Daisy averted her eyes and brought her mug to her lips for a big sip of coffee. She felt Jemma’s arm pull free from the mug she was holding so it could slip around Daisy’s waist. She didn’t look away, she held her gaze to Daisy’s face, searching and waiting. Daisy took a deep breath and sighed. “I want to head back to HQ with Coulson, Fitz, Joey and Mack today,” she said. Jemma’s face fell almost instantly at the thought of having to be separated from Daisy after everything. She looked over at the table as she wondered what being separated from her so soon after everything might do to Lily. “Just for a couple of hours, Jem,” Daisy added.

Jemma’s eyes moved to Daisy’s face again, searching once more for something. “Why?” she asked.

“Lincoln and Bobbi are working with Hunter on his transition,” Daisy said. “I know he has more experience, obviously, than me with successful transitions, but…” She shrugged gently. “I want to check on Hunter and Bobbi,” she said quietly. “They’re missing from all of this,” She motioned with her mug toward the dining room. “I don’t want them to think we’ll forget what they went through for us,” she said. “It’s the least we can do.”

Jemma had to admit she was concerned about Bobbi and Hunter both alike. She chewed gently on her bottom lip but acquiesced with a small nod. “Alright,” she nodded. “Just a few hours, though. You’re not a hundred percent recovered yourself and we need you so you can’t go exhausting yourself back into hospital,” She instructed firmly. “Don’t think I won’t sic Dr. Simmons on you if you make me,” she warned with just the hint of a worried smile.

“Yes, ma’am,” Daisy replied with a chuckle. She leaned over and kissed Jemma. “Three hours and then right back home and back to much deserved cuddling,” she promised. Jemma gave a nod of approval and leaned up for another kiss. Just a day ago, Jemma wasn’t sure she would ever actually see Daisy awake again and now she was standing in the kitchen, alive, awake and healing better than any of the rest of them. The bruising on her neck from Ward wrapping his hand around it multiple times yesterday looked a garish green and yellow color as if it had been there for weeks and was simply fading. Most of the visible cuts and bruises from her face and hands were gone completely. Jemma could only assume the same could be said of the injuries she couldn’t see.

Jemma was just about to ask Daisy how she was feeling but Lily had turned around to look for Daisy after suddenly realizing she wasn’t in the dining room with everyone and had spotted Jemma. “Mummy!” She called out, immediately trying to pry herself from her booster seat to no avail thanks to the buckle around her waist that kept her in place. She whimpered as she tried to pull free.

“Good morning, darling!” Jemma smiled brightly as she turned and started for Lily right away to keep her from trying to escape her seat. Ignoring as everyone turned their eyes her way, Jemma put her tea mug down on the dining room table as she made it to the spot next to Lily’s chair. She leaned over and kissed the top of Lily’s head and then crouched down to be eye level with her daughter and brushed her fingers through her hair as she smiled at her. “Did Mama make you breakfast?” She asked.

Lily nodded. “We had waffles,” She said before she leaned forward to burrow into Jemma’s neck and shoulder right afterward.

Jemma feigned a gasp. “ _Waffles_?” she asked as she kissed the side of her head and wrapped her arms around Lily as May reached for the buckle on the booster seat to release it. “Thank you,” Jemma mouthed over Lily’s shoulder to May who just nodded. Once she was unbuckled, Jemma stood up and pulled Lily with her. “Did she make you Peanut Monkey chip waffles?” she asked. Lily nodded against her shoulder. “You are one spoiled little monkey, love, huh?” She teased as she adjusted her grip on Lily and swayed slightly. Lily smiled against her collar and nodded.

Daisy crossed the kitchen after setting her mug down and settled next to Jemma, reaching her hand out to settle it along Lily’s back. For a little while longer everyone fell into easy conversation, trying to shy away from anything to serious while Lily was present. Eventually May, Mack, Joey and Alicia started on clean up duty. Daisy and Jemma brought Lily upstairs with them and into the master bedroom. Jemma climbed into bed and sat back against the headboard with Lily sideways across her lap. Daisy grabbed a pair of jeans, some underthings and a black henley shirt and headed for the bathroom in their room, detouring only so she could drop a kiss to the back of Lily’s head and then to Jemma’s lips.

She knew Jemma was concerned about how she was holding up, physically and emotionally in the wake of everything so the last thing she wanted was to undress and show off whatever marks remained on her torso to her worried wife and till traumatized daughter. She paused to stare at what remained of the marks she could see on her torso in the mirror. There was barely anything left to them, which was both a relief and still mind boggling. She didn’t know if there might be adverse reactions to the alien blood injection now that she had transitioned through and became and Inhuman. So far it didn’t seem like there were any concerning unknown side effects. She was, however, healing a lot faster this time around than last time that was for sure. Daisy wasn’t sure if that should be worrisome or not but, considering all they had been through, she was going to chalk this one up as a win for her team.

After she washed her face and brushed her teeth, she dressed herself and put on a scant, light amount of makeup and brushed her hair out to get the tangles out. She made her way back into the master bedroom and grabbed some socks and a pair of boots before sitting on the end of the bed to tug both on. Lily had been half asleep in Jemma’s arms as Jemma held onto and rocked with her, humming softly. Daisy gave both of them a reassuring smile but Lily sat up almost instantly in Jemma’s lap when she realized that Daisy was possibly going somewhere. She let out a whimper when Jemma held onto her to keep her from hurting her casted arm by scrambling across the bed.

“Heyyyy, Monkey, shhhh,” Daisy moved to sit down on the edge of the bed next to Jemma’s hip. “It’s okay,” she put her hand on Lily’s cheek and kissed her forehead. Lily’s eyes began to pool with tears as she looked up at Daisy and it almost broke the little bit of resolve she was holding onto that it was the right thing to do, to make sure the rest of their family was alright.

Lily broke free from Jemma’s grasp, crawled into Daisy’s lap and threw both of her arms, cast and all around Daisy’s shoulders. “Mama, don’t go!” She whimpered. It didn’t matter that she had no idea where Daisy might be going. Lily wanted her to stay.

Daisy closed her eyes and took a steadying breath as she wrapped her arms around Lily. Jemma reached out to put her hand on Daisy’s forearm and gave it a small, reassuring squeeze. Daisy opened her eyes and looked at Jemma. She could see Jemma didn’t want her to go either but Jemma wasn’t a scared two and a half year old, so she was able to muster up a small encouraging smile.

“Hey, Sweetpea,” Daisy kissed the side of Lily’s head and gave her a squeeze before she pulled Lily back and pressed their foreheads together. She gently wiped Lily’s cheeks off as the little girl sniffled. “Listen, okay?” She asked. Lily slowly nodded against her forehead, still holding onto Daisy’s shoulders as best as she could. Daisy smiled and kissed the end of Lily’s nose. “I love you,” Daisy reminded her. “Uncle Hunter’s got some boo-boos he needs help with,” she began, not really sure how to explain this to Lily.

Jemma sat forward and kissed the back of Lily’s shoulder before setting her chin on the top of it. “That’s right and he was such a good uncle while we were in the hospital with Mama, wasn’t he?” She asked. Lily nodded, looking back and forth between her moms. “Yeah, he was,” Jemma nodded.

Daisy smiled. “So I’m gonna go visit him with Papa, Uncle Fitz and Uncle Mack,” she said. “Just so I can make sure he and Aunt Bobbi are okay. Uncle Fitz, he’s gonna bring me back in a couple of hours, wayyyyy before dinner, just in time to cuddle you into nap time,” she forced a smile as Lily frowned at the idea of Daisy leaving again. “Mummy and Nǎinai and Alicia, they’re going to stay here with you so you can play all the games you want – maybe you can even convince Nǎinai to _build a pillow fort_ ,” she said with a feigned scandalized gasp as she smiled at Lily. Lily looked a bit skeptical as she sniffled again. Daisy could feel her resolve breaking.

“Ooooh, that’s right, I forgot how much Nǎinai likes to make pillow forts to watch movies,” Jemma chimed in.

It took some heavy convincing, but eventually, Jemma and Daisy made their way back downstairs to join everyone. Daisy carried Lily in her arms and Lily clung onto her. For a moment, Daisy thought back to the first time she and Jemma had gone out to dinner for a date after Lily was born and the way she had wailed once she had realized that both her moms were gone. This was quite a bit different, though. After a bit more convincing and a lot of hugs, kisses and reassurances, Lily finally let Daisy pass her to Jemma and Daisy pulled her coat on. She kissed Lily on the cheek once more and then wrapped her and Jemma up in a tight hug. She stole a few quick kisses from Jemma. “If you need anything, call me,” she said. “I’ve already set my number to forward to May’s phone,” she held it up after May handed it to her. “I love you,” she told them, giving each one last kiss and trying to keep her heart from breaking at the sad pout on Lily’s face as she followed Coulson and the others out to the SUV parked in the driveway.

\---

When they made it to the base, Daisy split from the group to walk with Fitz to the lab since it was on the way to the containment room that she knew Hunter would be in. She followed Fitz all the way into the lab though and Fitz stopped at his usual terminal to log in before he arched an inquisitive eyebrow at Daisy.

“What?” He asked, deciding not to tiptoe around anything. Daisy hesitated. She bit into the corner of her bottom lip and Fitz immediately tensed. “Bloody hell, what’ve you done?” He asked with a sigh. He knew that face. She was up to something and it was probably something that she would insist he kept from Jemma. Fitz was terrible at keeping secrets from Jemma. She always knew right away and she knew exactly what to do or say to make him crack. He could see Daisy hesitating, that she needed him to do something but was reluctant to make him do whatever it was without telling Jemma. Fitz sighed again. “Just tell me, Daisy,” He said finally.

Daisy reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out the injector she had ripped from Ward’s grip before he could properly deploy it into his neck. She stared down at it a moment in her palm, shifting anxiously on her feet. Her mind went to quite a few dark places as she thought about the things Ward had said while they fought. Obviously she knew that he was a masterful liar, but there had been something about the way he had kept on taunting her about Carter that made her feel like he hadn’t been lying about this. The idea of it made her stomach churn. That whatever blood Ward had taken from Jemma and Carter when he had taken them, that he had been able to turn it into something akin to the super soldier serum but with the added Inhuman power boost – that her son’s legacy would be one of destruction and pain brought about by the remnants of a Hydra organization that had been led by Grant Ward until they had finally disposed of him yesterday. It unnerved her.

With a deep breath, she clenched her hand around the injector. Fitz watched her carefully, unsure what he was in for. Daisy licked her lips and shifted on her feet again. She reached out, turning her hand over and put the injector down on the lab table between them. Fitz arched up his right eyebrow and patiently waited for an explanation as he looked down at the handheld device she had put down. “Ward…” She paused a moment and cleared her throat, taking a steadying breath. “He was using this to inject himself. Within seconds of the injection…it was an instant power shot.” she explained as Fitz reached out to pick the injector up.

“Super soldier serum?” Fitz asked curiously.

Daisy’s muscles were wound tense. She frowned as her eyes stayed locked on the device in Fitz’s hands as he examined it. “Maybe,” she paused a moment. “I need…” She frowned when Fitz fixed her with a knowing glance. He knew what she was going to ask but there was still more of an explanation to it. “I need you to analyze its contents,” she said, “…without telling Jemma.”

Fitz frowned when he saw the way her eyes welled before she swallowed and set her jaw, squaring her shoulders similar to the way he thought May would have if she were standing in front of him and preparing to cut her emotions off. Daisy always had a much harder time stifling her emotions, however and Fitz could see her struggling now. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Daisy dropped her eyes from Fitz to the device again. “Ward said it…” Daisy closed her eyes and flinched as that day, the day they had lost Carter, flashed through her mind again. Her hands gripped the edge of the lab table until her knuckles were white, trying her damnedest to push the image of Carter’s infinitely small, lifeless body lying on the cold metal slab from her mind to no avail.

“He said he used Carter…for part of whatever’s in this…cocktail,” She barely managed to get it out in a whisper.

Instantly, Fitz’s head snapped up from looking at the device to staring at Daisy. Daisy’s tear welled eyes shifted to lock with Fitz’s horrified gaze. “Daisy…” He gasped out quietly.

Daisy shook her head. She couldn’t do the emotional thing right now. She had a task, she needed to give it to Fitz and she needed him to keep it on the down low. “I have a theory,” she forced the words out in an even tone. “But I need confirmation that Ward wasn’t lying before I can proceed.” She explained.

Fitz frowned down at the device in his hand, pressing his lips together into a tight line for a moment. When his eyes met Daisy’s again, he simply offered,

“Jemma?”

Daisy shook her head. “No,” She told him firmly. “Not until I know for sure what we’re dealing with,” she hated the idea of hiding anything from Jemma but after all they had been through, she wasn’t prepared to deal this traumatizing blow to Jemma unless it was a valid claim.

Normally, Fitz would have whined for a bit about how he was terrible at keeping secrets from Jemma. Not this time, though. This time, Fitz studied Daisy’s face for a moment before looking back down at the offending object in his hand. He pressed his lips into a tight line and gave Daisy a firm nod to let her know he would do it. “Give me a few days,” he said.

Daisy nodded. “Thank you,” she replied quietly. They exchanged one final glance before Daisy turned on her heel and left the lab. She clenched her jaw tight and took slow, deep steadying breaths as she made her way down the corridors toward her next destination; the Inhuman isolation rooms.

\---

In the first few months adjusting to taking care of Lily, Jemma had lamented multiple times that there weren’t two of her; one to do work and chores and the other to spend with Lily and Daisy. She felt validated in her lamenting as she and May watched Alisha and her clones playing hide and seek with Lily. Not only did it turn out to be a great distraction for Lily from the fact that Daisy wasn’t home with them, but it proved she was further ahead in her counting skills than Jemma had been at her age.

It was a relief to see Lily at least momentarily distracted, squealing with glee every time she found a clone of Alisha that would automatically chase her to scoop her up into the air for a tickle and raspberry attack. Jemma still felt unsettled. She was conscious of the fact that this was to be expected in light of the massive traumas they had endured over the last week or so. Despite that, she felt angry with herself as she sat tiredly on the couch in the living room with May, watching her hands tremble slightly in her lap.

Jemma had insisted that she had work to do but the paperwork had been sitting on the coffee table for over an hour. May had some files she was working on with a tablet that Daisy had left with her but she was keeping a discreet eye on Jemma, trying to gage when it was she would need to step in and say something. Every time Lily appeared, racing or trotting, sometimes looking for Alisha, sometimes racing away from one of Alisha’s copies chasing her, Jemma would give her a smile and speak up to say something encouraging with an enthusiastic tone to keep her playing and distracted.

Afterward, she would slump back into the couch again, wary and weary all at once.

Jemma’s mind was a mess of nervous emotional anxiety. Her thoughts swam through murky, choppy waters of guilt, fear and self-doubt. These feelings were possibly exacerbated by the fact that Daisy wasn’t home with them currently. She knew it was selfish to wish for Daisy to be home rather than to want her to make sure that Bobbi and Hunter were coming through everything okay. She had wanted so badly to throw her arms around Daisy’s neck and cling onto her the way Lily had, to beg her to stay home. She had almost insisted that Coulson and Fitz could both easily check on Bobbi and Hunter for them, that the couple would understand why they hadn’t left the house. Jemma had pushed her selfish wants away, though because she knew that it was something Daisy had to do and that Daisy wouldn’t rest without knowing she did all she could to help them in light of Hunter’s new lot in life. And so Jemma waited while her hands trembled in her lap.

To still them, Jemma turned her palms down and pressed them to her thighs, sliding them forward to grip her knees. She looked at the pile of work she had brought downstairs from the library/office but didn’t reach for them. When her hold on her knees didn’t seem to quell the nerves making her shake, she reached up and pulled her hair out of her ponytail, fussing with it until she had put it right back up into an equally messy ponytail to the one it had been in.

“Let yourself feel the fallout of it,” May said without looking up from what she was working on. “It’s the only way to make your way toward eventually accepting that you did it.” She didn’t look over at Jemma just yet because she was offering the advice to test the waters and see how receptive Jemma would be to talking about what was bothering her.

Jemma fidgeted in her spot. She shifted her weight and picked at a frayed seam on the outside of her knee. She tensed when May spoke and continued frowning at her lap. “It’s not the first time I’ve killed someone,” she said as if May didn’t already know that, though she did speak very softly, casting a few furtive glances at each entrance of the room, afraid she might say something like that while Lily was within earshot.

“I know,” May assured with a nod. She fell silent about the matter and went back to work. The ball was now officially in Jemma’s court and it would be up to her to decide if she wanted to keep it in play or not.

Jemma couldn’t seem to sit still. She kept trying to hold everything back, to keep it at bay. Daisy was her solid foundation when she didn’t know how to cope and she could wait another hour or two for Daisy to return so she could let herself break. Until Daisy was back, she couldn’t let this consume her. She had to be in control of herself mindful of the present so that she could be mentally and emotionally available for Lily.

“I did what I had to do to protect my family those times,” Jemma blurted after she could no longer bear the long silence that fell between them.

“I know,” May nodded.

“I’m…I’m not sorry I did it,” she insisted. “I will do it again if I ever have to,” She said, resolute and firm despite feeling unnerved. It was true. She might not have powers like Daisy, but Jemma Simmons was capable of moving heaven and Earth to protect her family.

“I know,” May nodded once more.

Jemma frowned at her hands in her lap. She wrung her hands together, fidgeted and picked at her cuticles. May finally looked over at her, watching intently.

Jemma was always used to doing the scientific observations. As the one being scrutinized now, she felt herself coming more and more unhinged. Her chest felt heavy and the dark swell within her swirled in her gut, trying to pull her into it, to consume her from the inside out. She hadn’t realized she had started silently crying until May had put the tablet down and moved over on the couch til their hips and knees were touching, and then had pulled her into one of the most maternally protective hugs she had ever felt while she gently wiped Jemma’s cheeks dry.

Jemma had no choice but to lean into the embrace. She tried to sniffle and bring herself back under control but there was just something about the way May held onto her that unraveled the last threads holding everything contained. She felt the guilt stemming from the way she had felt when she had thrown Ward into the incinerator and cranked the control to its highest setting, the satisfaction she had felt as she had watched him scream and writhe around in there as the bloody mess that he had been by that point, the fact that she would have gladly watched until Ward was nothing but ashes if it hadn’t been for Daisy calling her name – she felt the shame of it well within her. May held onto her without speaking at first, an arm wrapped around her and her other hand stroking her hair as Jemma pressed into her collarbone and stifled her crying jag.

Alisha, one of her at least, was on her way about to head through the living room with Lily chasing her when she spotted the two of them and did an about face, hurriedly scooping Lily up with a few jokes about gobbling her up as she carried her away blowing loud raspberries on her belly as Lily squealed and squirmed in her grasp to keep her away from seeing her mother in the state she was in.

“I had to do it,” Jemma murmured, insistent.

“You had no choice,” May finally replied. “So long as he was breathing, he would have never stopped.”

Jemma felt a sob pulled through her and she buried her face further into the crook of May’s neck to muffle it. May tightened her hold on Jemma. She never once told Jemma to stop crying. Just because May had a certain way of handling her emotions did not mean she wasn’t conscious of the fact that not everyone handled things the way that she did. Each member of her team had particular ways of handling things and it was part of May’s job to know that about them. This current situation was by no means solely a hazard of the job. This was a family situation. Jemma had the analytical brain of a scientist, no one could ever doubt that, but she also had the gentle heart of a lamb. This didn’t stop her from occasionally showcasing the courage and ferocity of a lion, as witnessed by the events that led up to yesterday. The long and short of it was that even though Jemma logically knew that what she had done was necessary, it didn’t stop her from over analyzing the feelings it had given her when she had done it.

“I’m glad he suffered,” Jemma blurted and May felt the way the admission made her shake. “He deserved to feel pain – he deserved more than what he got before it was over and I,” Jemma’s sob hitched in her throat as she let the confession stream out of her in a torrent of anguish. “I wanted to see it! I wanted to feel it, when he knew he was going to die, I wanted…I wanted to, to, t-to hold onto the…the s-satisfaction of watching his fear and…and pain,” she cried into May, soaking the collar of her shirt.

May was resolute in her hold on Jemma. If it wasn’t for the fact that Jemma had come unraveled in her arms, Jemma would have been able to hear the way May’s heart was pounding painfully against her ribs. Like most of the others, the team was her family. She was extremely protective of them and she showed them she cared in her own ways, some (like Lily) in more outwardly affectionate ways than others as a product of the things she had been through and her (failed) attempts not to form solid attachments. That was the story, at least. It wasn’t because she wanted to be alone and have no connections. It was because she felt strongly that fear of losing the ones she cared most about, of failing to protect them. This? This was what she could do for Jemma in the moment since right now there were no more physical battles for her to step into on her behalf.

“I know,” May’s voice was still firm but there was a softness around the edges of her tone. She wanted to take this burden from Jemma. She wished Jemma hadn’t been the one to take care of Ward. She remembered, years ago now, sitting in silent vigil in the HQ morgue with Carter and listening to the agonizing wails and pleas Jemma had let out for hours before she had finally sobbed herself into exhaustion. She didn’t need to see the scene Coulson had described to know that Daisy had clung onto Jemma and cried with her through the whole thing. May had never wanted to hold onto two people until it somehow made the terrible pain they were experiencing subside the way she had wanted to for Jemma and Daisy that day.

May inhaled a slow breath to calm herself. “Jemma,” It was still a rarity for May to use her first name, so the use of it in the firm but almost tender tone caused Jemma pause as she sniffled and tried to bring herself back under control. “You are not a monster,” She knew this was Jemma’s fear – that she had let that sliver of darkness in and that it would only grow from there. “Ward will never take your family away from you again. You are responsible for safeguarding your family, nothing more.” May paused a moment as Jemma hiccupped and sniffled. “You made the hard call, kid,” she said gently. “You’re allowed a moment of relief, after all that he put you through.” She said with absolution. Silence was upon them again as Jemma’s hands came up to find purchase on May’s arm near her elbow, holding tightly as she silently cried.

\---

Bobbi was sitting on the ground with her back against the wall next to the door of the isolation room Hunter was in. Her knees were bent and her hands were in her lap against her stomach as she turned her wedding band around and around her finger. Her forehead was etched with deep worry creases. She heard Daisy’s boots as she approached but didn’t look to see who the newest intruder was until Daisy had stopped a couple of feet in front of her. Bobbi blinked in disbelief.

“Daisy?” Bobbi asked, feeling dumbfounded. She moved to climb to her feet and Daisy reached out to help her when it was clear she was not only hurting from the fight yesterday but stiff from sitting there for a long time.

“Hey,” Daisy replied in a soft tone, giving Bobbi’s arm a comforting squeeze once she was on her feet. “How’re you holding up?” She could see that Bobbi had spent some amount of time crying and, frankly, she was impressed that she wasn’t crying all over now. May and Bobbi would always be her inspiration for the kind of control she wanted over her emotions.

Bobbi blinked and stared at her. “…what are you doing here?” she looked around the room again. “Lily and Jemma, are they-,”

“They’re okay,” Daisy supplied readily. “They’re at home,” she added. “I hitched a ride in with Coulson and some of the others. We wanted to check on you two,” She paused a moment and glanced at the door to the isolation room. “I…” she turned her eyes back up to Bobbi’s. “I wanted to see if I could help,” she added.

It was Daisy’s last sentence that brought the well of tears into Bobbi’s eyes, knowing that Daisy pulled herself away from her wife and daughter after everything that happened, to come and make sure they had everything they needed. She opened her mouth but couldn’t seem to speak, so Daisy reached out and pulled her in for a hug. Bobbi’s arms were strong and firm when they wrapped around her and held on, needing the comfort source.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done for us,” Daisy murmured as she squeezed Bobbi tighter. “I’m so sorry this happened to you both…”

“He’s alive…” Bobbi whispered when she finally found her voice. It was the only solace she could find to hang onto at the moment and she clung fiercely to it. “He’s alive…” She repeated.

“I promise you,” Daisy replied, “We’ll get you through it.” There was no question about it in Daisy’s voice. Failure wasn’t an option. Bobbi hugged her tighter and they stayed that way for a long time, one leaning on the other.

\---

An hour after her crying jag with May, Jemma had once again given up on doing the work she had brought into the living room. This time it was because as she had reached for it, Alisha had come back into the living room with Lily holding onto her hand and trudging next to her. Lily let go of Alisha’s hand and rushed toward Jemma immediately.

“Hello, love,” Jemma’s eyes were bloodshot and red rimmed but she smiled at Lily and scooped her up from the floor then set her down across her lap. She wrapped her arms around Lily and pulled her to rest against her chest. Lily was quick to relax right into her embrace. “Did you have fun with Alisha?” she asked. Lily nodded against her shoulder. “Good,” she kissed the top of Lily’s head. “Who won?”

“ME!” Lily proclaimed pointing to herself with her good hand.

Alisha let out an exhausted sigh as the last few of her copies came into the room and returned to her while she was depositing herself onto the loveseat. “She’s definitely too swift for me,” Alisha said with a grin and another exaggerated tired sigh. May was still working on her tablet, occasionally messaging Daisy to give her updates on Jemma and Lily.

“Well, no surprise there,” Jemma said with a teasing tone. “Too smart for her own good,” she gently tickled Lily’s sides. Lily snickered and squirmed in her lap and then turned and burrowed against her side. Jemma sat back in the corner of the couch and snuggled up with her daughter.

“When’s Mama coming back?” Lily asked.

“Soon, baby,” Jemma confirmed with a nod. “Til then, you’re stuck with me!” She teased and tilted her head down to blow a big raspberry into the crook of Lily’s neck. Lily let out a shriek of laughter and it was one of the few sounds that made Jemma momentarily feel like she would be alright.

She reached to the coffee table with some effort and then sat back with Lily. “Shall we see if you can beat Uncle Fitz’s high score on Tetris?” She challenged, knowing full well that Lily wouldn’t be able to resist. Sure enough within moments Lily was cackling like a mad scientist, occasionally sticking her tongue to the corner of her mouth in concentration the way Daisy did when she became caught up in some kind of code-related thing on her computer, as she played the game from Jemma’s lap while Jemma held onto the tablet. Every so often, Jemma kissed her shoulder or the side of her head and Lily would lean her head back for a sleepy rest or two between games.

\---

“I’m _fine_!” Hunter protested with frustration as Daisy joined him and Lincoln in the isolation room. Lincoln had him hooked up to a number of mobile monitors as Hunter paced the floor and kept looking at the door.

“I know you feel like you are right now,” Lincoln was saying only to be interrupted again.

“Yeah, because I bloody _am_!” Hunter scoffed and rolled his eyes. “I did the…butterfly, cocoon thing and now I’m free – piece a cake! Let me out of the cage, mate!” He looked at Daisy. “Finally! Be a dear and call the dogs off, yeah?” He asked, motioning toward Lincoln. As he started to moved his hand, Daisy pushed her hand out toward Lincoln and sent a roll of shockwaves toward him that shoved him out of the way of one of Hunter’s heated plasma orbs, which he had accidentally sent flying with the simple irritated flick of his wrist in Lincoln’s direction. Lincoln slid across the floor. The orb crashed into the wall and caused it to shake slightly.

Hunter stared at the wall both forlorn and taken aback.

“Still think you’re fine, dude?” Daisy asked with a sad smile as she crossed to where Lincoln was sitting on the ground, leaning up on his elbows. She held her hand out and helped him up. “Didn’t break your tailbone this time, did I?” She asked him.

Lincoln dusted himself off and shook his head at her. “No, but what would your wife think about your continued concern for the wellbeing of my shapely ass?” He smirked at her.

Daisy rolled her eyes but smirked. “Quit wasting my time. I’m here to help but I don’t want to keep Lily waiting for me too long,” she looked between both of them.

The mention of Lily finally calmed Hunter down from his aggravated pacing. “She’s alright, yeah?” He asked. He knew it was a stupid question. Daisy would never be here if Lily wasn’t alright. Bobbi had told him after Daisy called earlier this morning that she was alright.

Daisy nodded. “She is. She will be.” She cleared her throat. “Now let’s get this show on the road. I’ve got a nap time to be home for,” She teased before she got down to it with Lincoln and Hunter, trying to aid in Hunter’s transition without being too physical since she was still achy and sore. Jemma would be angry with her if she came home in worse shape than she had left in.

\---

Coulson wound up being the one to drive Daisy home after she had finished working with Hunter and Lincoln for a bit. He still had a long way to go but by the time she left Hunter was at least calm and just in control enough to be touched without burning anyone thanks to the built up energy in his system. She had given him a warning that if he got too excited he should make sure no one else’s hands were on him mostly because she knew Bobbi had been dying to be able to do more than stand there and stare at him. The burnt inside of her right hand was testimony enough to the fact that she had tried to touch him a couple of times. Now she could at the absolute very least, hug him.

Daisy felt anxious in the car, as she had when they had left in the morning and as she had when they had driven from the base to the Simmons home the night before. She was able to control her fidgeting but her eyes gave her away most. She couldn’t just sit and stare out the window or down at her phone. Her eyes moved constantly, watching the road in front of them, checking out the side windows, glancing in the side view mirrors to watch behind them and occasionally glancing over her shoulder to look out the back window of the SUV they were in. All the while, her brain was rolling, continuously turning over and over with her thoughts on the theory she had about the injector device and what Ward’s plans had been all along.

“I spoke with May before we left,” Coulson said to break the silence. He glanced her way every so often as he drove; he was trying his best to observe her mannerisms so he could make an evaluation of her mental state. “She said Lily tired herself out playing hide and seek with multiple Alishas,” He smiled and gave a small chuckle.

A soft smile curved up the corners of Daisy’s lips. As quickly as it appeared, it fell away in the next second. She had promised to be home in time to cuddle Lily into a nap. What if she was already out for her nap now? Daisy frowned and looked down at her lap where a perfectly clean, but still just as tattered as he had been when Daisy had last seen him, stuffed monkey named Groot sat. The stuffed animal sat in her lap on top of Lily’s worn out baby blanket. Lincoln had found both during the cleanup effort at the hospital. He had made sure to clean all signs of battle from the monkey so there was no blood or any other contaminate on them. Daisy had almost cried when he had handed them over to her. She felt her heart twist as she thought again about the way Lily had begged her not to leave today. Her daughter was obviously traumatized and that had happened as a direct result of nothing more than being guilty of being Daisy’s daughter.

“I asked Fitz to analyze something I took off of Ward while we were at the hospital,” Daisy said. She purposefully kept her gaze away from his, looking everywhere including all her safety checkpoints to ensure they weren’t being followed, but at Coulson. She could feel his eyes on her when he initially glanced her way and she forced herself not to squirm under his gaze.

After a long moment of silence, Coulson spoke. “I was wondering what I saw him fiddling with.” He murmured. Daisy waited and soon enough the question she knew he would ask came. “What exactly was it?”

Daisy looked down at the monkey plush in her lap. She couldn’t stop wondering what it would have been like to go through life without having lost Carter…but then without possibly having Lily _because_ they hadn’t lost Carter. There was no answer to that conundrum that ever set Daisy at ease. She wasn’t willing to live her life without her daughter. At the same time, there wasn’t a single morning that she had woken up since January 23rd, 2018 where she didn’t long to be able to wrap Carter up in her arms and hold onto him.

“He was injecting some kind of super steroid,” Daisy answered after taking a deep breath to steady her voice. “I think it was spliced with Inhuman DNA as a way to avoid having to transition with the crystals while still reaping the benefits of added power,” she answered.

Coulson pretended not to be shocked by this comment. He nodded a few times as he watched out the window while he drove them. “You came to this theory by watching him inject it?” He asked, choosing his questions with careful thought.

Daisy frowned at Groot the monkey as she held onto him in her lap. She struck her tongue out and licked her lips. “No,” she gave her head a solitary shake. Coulson didn’t press her for the detail. Instead, he waited. The wait paid off because she took a slow breath and continued. “He said the strength the injections gave him came from Carter,” she almost whispered his name, as if saying it out loud caused her physical pain. Daisy was positive it actually had done just that.

Coulson’s silence in the wake of her statement made Daisy tense. She busied herself with checking once more that they were not being followed. “Do you believe he was telling the truth?” He asked.

Daisy hesitated as she stared out through the front windshield. She let out a slow exhale. “I don’t know,” she answered. She knew that Ward had been taunting her about it, but the only way to tell if he was doing it just to get under her skin and throw her off, that it was just baseless bullshit would be to have Fitz test it and give her the results. “That’s why I gave it to Fitz to analyze,” she explained.

Coulson absorbed this information and let his brain start wrapping around the idea of it and the different implications of what it would mean. He turned onto Daisy’s street and Daisy stared at the house as they approached. “You have a theory, don’t you?” Coulson asked as he parked in the driveway. Daisy looked over at him finally. “About what he was planning on doing with it? And with Lily?” Coulson prodded further. Daisy could see the concern in his face as her brain worked to put pieces together, worrying that his granddaughter was still in danger.

Daisy tensed and inhaled slowly. “Lily was an afterthought for him,” She frowned. “For whatever reason…he didn’t know about her until the accident.” She explained. “After he saw her shield…that’s when he decided he wanted her…”

“To add to his power source?” Coulson finished the thought aloud.

Daisy clenched her jaw and kept her breath as even as possible. She did not want to walk into the house tense and agitated. “Maybe,” she answered. “You saw the original plans,” She spoke again after a moment. “After that day…when Carter,” She paused and cleared her throat. She gave her a head a small shake. “We’ll talk about it after Fitz finishes the analysis. Until then,” she looked from the porch over to Coulson. “I don’t want Jemma to know about this,” Her face was taut with guilt over the fact that she was now asking a second person to help her withhold something from Jemma.

Coulson pressed his lips into a tight line; sympathy was etched into the creases of his worry lines. He seemed to be contemplating a protest but instead he just gave Daisy a solitary nod to let her know that he understood. He reached out to give her shoulder a squeeze in an attempt to extend some kind of comfort.

“Thanks,” Daisy spoke softly, in earnest.

Coulson nodded. “Let’s get you inside. You’ve been away from them for long enough,” He nodded toward the house and both of them unhooked their safety belts and climbed from the car.

Daisy carried Groot and the baby blanket in her arms as they walked to the front door, momentarily sad that they didn’t smell like Lily since they were freshly washed but immensely glad that she had two of Lily’s favorite comfort items to bring to her. She opened the door and stepped over the threshold. Coulson followed her in as she stopped to turn and run her finger over the biometric scanner so no alarms would be set off. She slipped out of her jacket and Coulson took it so he could hang it up with hers and so Daisy wouldn’t have to delay going to see Lily.

In the living room, there was a massive fort where the coffee table used to be. It extended from the edge of the couch all the way across the room to hanging over the television, blocking their entrance from view. Daisy could hear soft giggles from inside and some murmurs as all four of its occupants watched whatever kids’ movie Lily had chosen. She cleared her throat and heard sudden gasps before silence aside from the television in the room. “Little pig! Little pig – let me in!!” She called with a stupid little grin twisted on her lips as she had dropped her voice to a lower tone than normal.

“Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin!” Jemma exclaimed from inside the fort as Lily stared wide-eyed at her, as if asking if Mama was really outside the fort.

Daisy let out a soft snicker. She made sure to take deep breaths as she replied after setting Groot and the blanket down on the floor next to her. “Thennnn I’ll _huff_ and I’ll _puff_ and I’ll-,”

“MAMA NOOOOO!!!” In a flash Lily had scrambled to her feet – as the only occupant of the fort who could do so without hitting her head on anything – and darted out from the fort.

Daisy had just enough time to bend her knees and crouch down before Lily appeared like a bullet and launched herself at her. Daisy caught Lily with a joking grunt and let herself fall back onto her butt on the floor, taking Lily with her as she chuckled. She wrapped her arms tight around Lily and gave her an even tighter squeeze. She instantly started a kiss attack, showering them all over her daughter’s face, neck and shoulder.

Lily giggled and wrapped her arms tight around Daisy’s neck. Daisy dropped another kiss into the crook of Lily’s neck as she leaned her nose toward the little spot at the nape of her neck and inhaled a deep breath, happy to let Lily’s scent fill her senses now that she was home, they were safe. She leaned forward to set Lily’s feet down on the floor after giving her another big squeeze. By then, Jemma, May and Alisha were crawling out from the fort’s entrance only to be met with Coulson and the highly amused expression and smirk on his face. There was a fond smile on Jemma’s face and relief in her eyes as she watched Daisy and Lily together.

Daisy pulled Lily back from their embrace and forced herself not to frown at the way that it caused Lily to whimper in fear. She didn’t let go of her daughter, though, instead kept a hand cupped along her cheek and the other gently against her good shoulder. “You’ll never guess who I ran into!” she said, letting her eyes widened with excitement. “He’s been awfully homesick without you so I convinced Papa to let him hitch a ride home with us…” she watched as Lily’s eyebrows arched. She looked past Daisy and spotted Coulson, who gave her a bright smile and a wave as he greeted her but waited to walk over since he knew what Daisy was getting at. Lily looked back at her mama, confused since she didn’t see anyone else.

Daisy let a big grin spread across her face. She reached next to her and picked up Groot before holding him up in front of her so that Lily could see him.

“GROOT!” Lily gasped, still flipping the ‘R’ for a ‘W’ sound. Her eyes opened up wide in surprise and her mouth dropped open.

Daisy grinned. “He spent the _whollllle_ ride talking about how much he missed you!” She exclaimed. For a moment, Lily looked like she might actually cry and Daisy felt a pang of guilt for causing it. In the next moment, she had surged forward, taking Groot from Daisy’s hands and wrapping him up into a tight hug before she leaned all her weight forward against Daisy’s shoulder and collarbone. Daisy smiled and wrapped her up in another tight hug. “I love you,” she murmured into Lily’s hair. She reached for Lily’s baby blanket with one hand and grabbed it by the corner, shaking it out and open as she did then wrapped the material around Lily and moved to stand up, scooping Lily and Groot right up with her. Lily put her head down on Daisy’s shoulder and nuzzled herself into the crook of her neck and shoulder and wrapped her legs around Daisy’s waist.

“Hey,” Daisy said once she was free to take a step over to Jemma. She could see that Jemma wasn’t doing so well even though she was pretending she was doing just fine, presumably for Lily’s sake. She pulled a hand free from Lily’s back and reached out to run it from Jemma’s shoulder down to her hand, which she gave a squeeze to before she leaned over to give her a quick kiss. “Sorry I didn’t get back a little sooner,” she apologized, though she had wound up gone for only two and a half hours instead of over three.

Jemma inhaled a steadying breath and shook her head. “Just glad you’re back,” she said as Daisy’s arm wound around her to pull her into her other side that Lily wasn’t resting against. “How’re Bobbi and Hunter?” She asked, glancing between Daisy and Coulson.

“Hunter’s got a way to go still,” Coulson spoke up to answer as he moved into the living room. He leaned over to greet Lily with a kiss to the back of her head and then started helping Alisha and May dismantle the massive pillow fort.

“But they’re doing okay right now,” Daisy added as she swayed slightly once Lily’s muscles started to relax against her. She could feel Lily’s slow, even breaths against her neck and realized she was starting to fall asleep. “For now, I think it’s nap time, though…” she looked at Jemma. Maybe it would spoil Lily to sleep in their bed with them, but considering everything that happened, she was more than willing to cuddle in bed with Lily tucked between them for a nap or to sleep at night, at least until they had time to process everything and start working on moving past it. Jemma nodded, hoping that rest would help ease the anxiety on her mind.

“Why don’t you go ahead up and lay down?” May suggested. “We’ll take care of fort clean up,” she assured. “I’ll come wake you in a little while,” she added with a small reassuring smile.

Daisy turned to look at Jemma, arching her eyebrows and pulling her closer. Jemma nodded. Daisy smiled at her. “Very well, we accept the expertly negotiated terms of the deal,” she said to May with a smirk that caused the corner of May’s mouth to twitch upward. Daisy had messaged her numerous times while she was at the base, wanting to check on Jemma. May hadn’t told Daisy what had happened but had let Daisy know that Jemma was in a bad way in not so many words.

Jemma and Daisy made their way up to their bedroom. There were some whimpered protests from Lily when Daisy handed her off to Lily and Jemma spent a few minutes assuring Lily that her Mama wasn’t going anywhere and was just changing back into her pajamas. Daisy worked quickly, tugging off her boots before she changed as quickly as she could from her day clothes into her pajamas before she climbed in under the covers on her side of the bed. She made sure she curled up close enough to them so that she could wrap her arms around them both. She wanted to be as near to them as possible but she also wanted to make sure she and Jemma were close enough that Lily easily knew they were both right there.

Daisy kissed the back of Lily’s head as Lily snuggled between them wrapped up in her blanket and hugging onto Groot as she closed her eyes tiredly. Daisy set her head on the pillow and let her eyes lock with Jemma’s over Lily’s head. She brought her fingers up and gently touched the side of Jemma’s face, letting her brow furrow just slightly to silently ask the dreaded question of whether or not Jemma was okay. Daisy knew the answer but she didn’t want to force it out of Jemma, especially when Lily was nestled between them, possibly listening as she nodded off.

“I’m glad you’re home,” Jemma whispered, moving so she could wrap her own arms around both of them.

“I’m sorry I left you guys,” Daisy apologized.

Jemma shook her head. “I wanted to make sure they were alright too,” she replied.

Daisy nodded. “I know,” She leaned over Lily enough to still a quick kiss. “I’m still sorry,” she added. “Won’t happen again until we’re ready to get back to the normal routine,” she promised, trailing her hand down Jemma’s shoulder, along her arm and bringing it back to rest around her under the covers of the bed.

“Okay,” Jemma nodded. She wanted to protest that Daisy didn’t have to baby both of them but there was a very large piece of her that just wanted Daisy to hold her and tell her everything was alright, that everything would be back to normal soon. There was a smaller part of her that felt almost ashamed of the fact that this was how she was feeling at the moment.

“Jem,” Daisy’s voice brought Jemma back to the present.

“Hmm?” Jemma’s eyes were half-lidded, still exhausted from the ordeal and the emotional drain of everything. She felt Daisy’s hand pressing soothing patterns along the length of her back and, for a myriad of reasons at the moment, felt the sting of tears as they began to prick at the edges of her eyes.

Daisy was the picture of serenity in that moment. The twitch in her heartbeat might’ve given her away since she hated to see either her wife or daughter in pain, but she was always in tune with seeing that Jemma needed her to provide stable footing. There were obviously times when the situations were reversed and even if there were stumbles sometimes, like After Carter, Jemma was usually quick to see the need and step in when it happened. For now, Jemma needed the reassurance and Daisy was more than willing to give it and repeat it as much and as often as was necessary to make Jemma believe it.

“We’re okay,” Daisy kept her tone gentle and her voice quiet as she said it. “We’re safe,” she added as her fingers pressed into her back, stroking against tensed muscles in an attempt to loosen them. “We’re together…I love you,” she knew Jemma could tell that she meant the both of them. “Right now, that’s all that matters,” Daisy said as she moved her hand along Jemma’s back, feeling her own relief as Jemma’s muscles began to relax under her touch. “I promise…there’s not a hurdle ahead of us that we can’t make it over, Jem,” She said with a reassuring, confident smile. “We’re okay,” she repeated.

Jemma closed her eyes and pressed closer to both of them, turning her head down to rest against the top of Lily’s. Daisy let go of Jemma’s back only so she could gently wipe at the lone tear that went down Jemma’s cheek. She kissed Jemma’s forehead and then went back to gently stroking her back in a slow but purposeful rhythm. She repeated all of her reassurances in whispers and repeatedly reminded Jemma that they were okay, they were safe and that she loved them both. Though she hadn’t cried any more than that single tear, Jemma let herself curl into both Lily and Daisy while Daisy held onto them both. Daisy waited until both of them had fallen asleep before she finally let her own eyes close to take a nap with her family.


	18. Giraffes Can't Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forewarning: There is both fluff and angst ahead in abundance 
> 
> This chapter is the longest I've written for two reasons:  
> \- I wanted to give you extra awesome since I took so long with this  
> \- I wanted to showcase the duality between their attempts at normal family life and how it spliced in with their work and the pitfalls that come with it  
> \- I think I've established that I ramble too, so...yes 
> 
> Forgive me for my typos/errors, a large large chunk of this didn't get properly spell/grammar checked because I didn't want to further delay posting it!  
> Have a great weekend! 
> 
> As always, thank you for reading, thank you for loving, kudo-ing, commenting and generally being awesome! I'm glad so many of you are enjoying this rollercoaster with me!!  
> Much love! <3<3<3  
> :o)
> 
> \------------------------------------------

**_2021 - January 3rd_ **

“How bad are they predicting it?” Daisy asked from the counter as she took a drink from her mug of coffee while waiting for the toaster to finish with the slices she had put in for Lily, who was currently seated on her left foot with her arms wrapped around Daisy’s lower leg. Daisy was only mildly paying attention to the news broadcast that Jemma was watching from the open laptop at the breakfast counter where she was set up with some tea and a partially finished bagel with cream cheese and strawberry jam smothered all over it. She was watching the forecast with interest because of the predictions over the last few days for the coming ‘snowpocalypse/superstorm/snowmageddon/etc’ storm.

“They can’t seem to decide one way or another but they keep mentioning the potential for it to be ‘historic,’” Jemma mused as she glanced over at Daisy, who grabbed the toast slices as they popped up and set them on a small plate where she began to slather one side of each in butter that quickly started melting. Daisy grabbed an old repurposed spice container that held an equal mixture of one to one, cinnamon and sugar over the top as Jemma continued. “Depending on which quote-unquote ‘track’ the storm follows, we could get anywhere from ten to eighty-one centimeters,” Jemma said, having converted it already in her head from imperial to metric. “Are you sure you want to get her all riled up so early in the morning?” Jemma cringed at the amount of butter and cinnamon-sugar Daisy had covered the toast in for Lily.

Daisy looked over her shoulder and arched her eyebrow at Jemma. “What? What’s the look for? Snow or Fairy Bread?”

Daisy snickered. “Art scolded me last time I called it that since I didn’t use colored sugar and there was cinnamon involved,” She smirked. “But also snow,” She added.

Jemma rolled her eyes and waved her hand. “Technicalities,” she shrugged. “Sorry, anywhere from,” she paused just about the length of half a breath. “Four to thirty-two inches,” She replied.

Daisy scrunched her face up and shook her head. “Wow. Nice that we can properly prepare,” she chuckled and finished with the toast, cutting the crusts off, she set them aside and then cut the slices into less than uniform small squares so that Lily would be able to easily eat them. She licked the half melted butter-cinnamon-sugar coating off of her thumb, wiped her hands on a napkin and took a gulp from her coffee mug before she set that down and grabbed the plate. “All aboarrrrrrd! Hold on tight, Monkey!” She said as she looked down at Lily. Immediately, Lily wrapped her arms and legs tighter around Daisy’s leg and wiggled her little butt around on Daisy’s foot as if that would somehow secure her seat atop her Mama’s foot.

Daisy snickered and then began a labored, limping trek, making train noises as she went. The noises were interrupted with more snickers each time Lily let go with one arm and let out a “Chooooo-Chooo!” as if it were a train whistle as she pumped her fist. Jemma nearly spit her mouthful of tea out at the display as she laugh. When she made it to the stool next to Jemma, where Lily’s booster seat had already been placed, Daisy made a breaking sound and stopped. She put the plate down and looked down at Lily.

“Final stop – Breakfast with Mummy!” She held her hands down and out for Lily to take. “Mind the gap!” she said with an exaggerated grin.

Lily was giggling away as she scrambled to her feet from her the floor. She grabbed onto Daisy’s hands. Daisy wrapped her hands around Lily’s hands and forearms and slowly pulled her upwards as Lily used her feet to climb up the length of her leg and hip. Daisy pulled her up to eye level first and kissed her cheeks as Lily’s little legs wiggled about and kicked lightly to find purchase. Daisy lifted her high above her head as Jemma pulled the stool out for them. Daisy leaned over and blew a raspberry into Lily’s belly, which resulted in a shriek of laughter and a great deal of squirming. Jemma and Daisy were both chuckling as Jemma hoisted Lily’s legs over the back of the stool and slipped them through the loops of her booster seat as Daisy lowered her down. Once she was hooked into her booster seat, Daisy purposefully made a show of distracting Lily with a kiss attack to her shoulder, neck and cheek so she could swipe on of the small squares from her plate.

“Mama, mine!” Lily gasped. Daisy kissed the top of her head and dashed around the counter after making sure the stool was pushed in properly. Lily fixed her stunned expression on Jemma.

Jemma dropped her jaw and feigned a small gasp for her daughter’s benefit. “Better hurry or the Breakfast Bandit might steal more of your fairy bread!” She said in a scandalized tone as Daisy refilled her coffee mug at the other counter and let out a joking cackle. Lily picked up a piece of the toast and stuffed it right into her mouth with multiple fingers as Daisy went to the fridge to fill up her juice cup halfway with apple juice and halfway with water. Jemma leaned over and kissed the top of Lily’s head as Daisy put the cup in front of Lily’s plate and then stood along the side of the breakfast counter next to Jemma with her coffee mug.

“When’s it supposed to start?” Daisy asked glancing, finally, at the weather as the meteorologists continued their fear mongering for the approaching storm.

“Hmm?” Jemma asked.

“The storm,” Daisy nodded to it as she reached over and absently ran her fingers along the spot between Jemma’s shoulder blades.

Jemma’s eyes closed a moment, distracted by the touch. “Oh, ah,” she lifted her eyes from Lily, who was eyeing Daisy shiftily as she tried to block her plate from anymore fairy bread theft as she ate square by square. “Light snow is supposed to start tomorrow night, gradual increase into the morning, heavy snow starts in the afternoon and continues until Tuesday night. They said they aren’t sure if it will stall over us or not, so it could taper off on Wednesday morning or continue heavy into Wednesday night, when it will ice over.”

Daisy grimaced. “Fantastic,” she smirked.

“I’m going to head to the base today to gather what I’ll need in case we get snowed in.” Jemma leaned into Daisy’s side as Daisy’s fingers worked their way against the muscles between her shoulders in Jemma’s favorite relaxing pattern. She closed her eyes and sighed.

Daisy grinned and leaned down to kiss the top of Jemma’s head. “I’ll take the Monkey with me for snow prep-errands. Good thing we did most of the grocery shopping Friday,” she smirked.

“What else do we need?” Jemma asked as she slipped her own arm around Daisy’s waist while Daisy took a sip from her coffee mug.

“Blizzard proof snacks!” Daisy joked. Jemma twisted her face and leaned back to look up at her. “I’m kidding!” Daisy chuckled and leaned over to steal a kiss. “I want to fill the extra gas cans to make sure we’ll have enough for the generator and the snow blower,” Though Daisy could always see how well her power worked in moving mounds of snow instead of just making avalanches, she wasn’t sure she was ready for the neighbors to see that, though. “I’ll grab some extra bags of ice melt too. If I have time today, I’ll make sure we’ve got enough split wood for the fireplace, if not I’ll do that tomorrow before the snow starts. We’ll move the cars in the garage to avoid having to clean them off,” She rambled out plans.

“Grab extra batteries, too, for the lanterns and torches,” Jemma added. “Maybe some new DVDs in case the power and internet go and we’re going on laptop battery alone?”

Daisy almost scoffed. “Your lack of faith in my ability to ensure our net connection is secure and not susceptible to nature is almost offensive, Jem,” She smirked.

“Preparation for all possibilities is important in Snowmageddon!” Jemma teased. “And popcorn kernels. We need popcorn kernels and extra butter.” She nodded.

Daisy snickered. “I wouldn’t dream of subjecting you to movies without buttered popcorn, Babe,” she said before she leaned over to steal a few more kisses.

\---

**_2021 – January 4th_ **

Even though it was only twenty-six degrees (negative three, Celsius “For those of us who are cultured!” as Jemma kept teasing her), Daisy had already begun sweating only twenty minutes into chopping wood to make sure they had enough for the fireplace in the living room for the storm. She was in a pair of under thermals – shirt and pants – her thickest pair of jeans, a hooded pullover sweatshirt and her thick fleece and wool lined flannel jacket, multiple layers of socks under her boots, a knit cap with her sweatshirt hood pulled over it and her thick winter gloves. Her nose and cheeks were red from the exposure to the air while working up a sweat swinging the axe around. It hadn’t started snowing yet, but the forecasts gave it a few more hours before the flurries would start. The area in the backyard she was working gave her perfect view of Lily and Jemma who were all bundled up and running around the large play set that Coulson had insisted on not only buying for their large backyard but on assembling himself (eventually with Daisy, Bobbi and Mack’s help, which wound up taking them almost an entire weekend).

It was a massive cedar monstrosity that was big enough, in Daisy’s opinion to have been in a playground and did nothing but solidify the fact that Lily was one spoiled little lady.

Coulson had gone so far as to dig and prepare a thick layer of mulch to lay down under the width and length of where the set would go, before it was delivered. Thankfully they had the space for it, so that was helpful. It also helped them get to know their neighbors with kids in and around Lily’s age a little more easily since the kids wanted to play on it all the time too.

It made up a twenty-five by eighteen foot chunk of their yard. It had a raised ‘clubhouse’ in the middle that had multiple entrances. Under the clubhouse as a cut out section for a sandbox, which Coulson insisted they had to also put in – and that came with its own cover when it wasn’t in use. Directly next to the sandbox space was a flat wooden platform with a picnic table and two little benches connected to one of the walls. There was a step ladder with rails at the back to get up into the clubhouse, a slide that came down from the clubhouse directly across the front ‘porch’ area of the clubhouse. The slide was on the front of it and visible from the house. Next to the slide was a small rock climbing wall that led back up onto the clubhouse porch. To the right of the clubhouse was a fenced in ‘sun porch’ (no, really, that’s what the instructions called it. Protruding from the left of the structure was a set of Monkey bars (Lily’s favorite, even though Daisy and Jemma only let her use them when they were holding on her sides to keep her from falling. Protruding from the right hand side was a three-position swing beam with two regular swings on it and a two-person glider swing on it. It was a wicked monstrosity. Lily loved the damn thing.

May said Coulson beamed with giddy Papa pride whenever Daisy or Jemma sent him photos or video of Lily squealing away while playing with one of them on the set. That was enough for Daisy to want to always send him photos at the very least whenever Lily was playing in the yard. Today was no exception. Daisy took a break from splitting wood so she could pull her gloves off. She tucked each one into a jacket pocket and pulled her phone from her back pocket, staying where she was, she zoomed her camera in and took a few minutes first to fire off a couple of photos of Jemma chasing Lily in and around the structure and eventually, lifting her up to the side entrance to the upper deck so she could skip climbing the ladder to the slide. Daisy took videos then as Lily begged to be hoisted up to the upper deck over and over again for the slide and went down the green plastic slide different ways each time – forward, backward, feet first, head first, with her arms out in front of her like she was superman. She laughed every single time and every single time, Jemma caught her any which way she slid down it and pulled her in for kiss and tickle attacks despite all their winter bundling. Daisy sent the photos and videos to Coulson, May and some of the others and then put her phone back in the back pocket of her jeans. She tugged her gloves back on and got back to work.

\--

By the time Daisy finished loading the last of the wood in the secondary outside holder by the backdoor, after filling the large holder that was in his garage so she wouldn’t have to go outside for the first few rounds of fireplace action, just into the garage, the flurries had started. Lily and Jemma had gone in almost two hours earlier after Lily had exhausted herself. Daisy moved the cars into the garage and hit the button to close the garage door behind her. She waited until it was completely shut to open the door that led into the mud room at the back of the house by the door that let out directly into the backyard. Elvis was lying in wait. He dashed out into the garage with a loud meow, ran under the cars and then came back and into the house, where he walked a figure eight around Daisy’s legs, rubbing up against them with a few more mews while he purred as Daisy ran her finger over the alarm’s biometric scanner to set the at home alarm since they were all inside.

Daisy snickered. “Hey, buddy,” she tugged off her gloves and leaned down enough to scratch behind his ears in greeting. She pulled the zippers on her boots and tugged them off along with the outer pair of socks. She stuffed her gloves in her jacket pocket and pulled her knit hat off, stuffed that into one of the pockets as well as she trudged through the house to hang her coat up in the coat closet. Just as she was shutting the door to the coat closet, the little wobbly speed ball of a blur known as Lily (or sometimes aka Monkey), came rushing right at her. A very tuckered out looking Jemma was a handful of yards behind her, chasing from the kitchen, where something delicious smelling enough to make Daisy’s stomach growl was cooking.

Jemma’s shoulders dropped in relief when she heard the familiar feigned grunt as Daisy scooped Lily up by her under arms. Lily’s legs wrapped around her middle as Daisy brought the girl to rest at her hip. “I thought you were a monkey, not a cheetah!” Daisy teased, wiggling her fingers against Lily’s side to tickle her ribs. Lily giggled and squirmed in her arms as she adjusted Lily’s weight on her side and walked toward the kitchen where Jemma was retreating back to whatever was on the stove.

“Did you have fun playing with Mummy today?” Daisy asked.

“Uh huh!” Lily nodded her head quickly just before she stuffed her fingers into her mouth as Daisy carried her into the kitchen.

“It smells like Mummy’s making something yummy for dinner,” Daisy said as she spied Jemma stirring a soup pot and fiddling with the temperature on the stove. There was a small pot on the burner next to it that Daisy knew held either mac and cheese or spaghetti-o’s for Lily.

“Sketty-O’s!” Lily cheered after pulling her hand from her mouth and pointing toward Jemma. Even though her back was to them as she stood at the stove and stirred the large pot of soup with one of the longest spoons she had ever seen, Daisy knew Jemma had scrunched her nose up at the idea of anyone - let alone her only child! - eating a sodium-laden can of spaghetti-o’s.

Daisy arched her eyebrows and gasped for Lily’s benefit as she grinned. “ _Spaghetti-O’s?_ ” She asked, exaggerating the shock in her tone. “Mummy sure must sure love you!”

“Ya-huh!” Lily nodded, a happy smile stretched so far across her face that Daisy was sure it had to hurt her cheeks.

Daisy finished making her way over next to Jemma, keeping the hip she had Lily resting on turned away from the stove to avoid any accidents. Jemma smiled over at them just before Daisy leaned over to greet her with a kiss.

“Your hair’s a mess,” Jemma teased, reaching her free hand out to tame some of the sweat matted strands of Daisy’s short hair that were sticking at weird angles from being stuck under her knit cap.

“Lumberjacking’s hard work,” Daisy defended with a crooked grin.

“Mmm,” Jemma nodded slowly. She wiped her hand on a couple of paper towels on the counter and then used them to wipe off the long handled spoon as she pulled it from the pot. “Hungry?” She arched a brow at Daisy as she lay the spoon down on the counter.

Daisy’s stomach growled in response at the same time that Lily let out an exclamation of, “YA-HUH!”

Jemma chuckled at both of them. She turned to get a better look at Lily. “What’s the word we’re _supposed_ to say instead of ‘Ya-huh’?” She arched her right eyebrow and lightly poked her fingers into Lily’s ribs to tickle her.

Lily squirmed and giggled in Daisy’s arms. “Yes, Mummy!” She murmured as she buried her face bashfully in the crook of Daisy’s neck with a last dwindling giggle or two.

Jemma grinned and leaned over to kiss the back of Lily’s head. “That’s my girl!” She praised as Daisy snickered and shook her own head. Jemma grinned at the two of them. Normally in moments like this, there were nagging feelings in the back of Daisy’s mind that always creeped in, warning her that any moment the other shoe was going to drop and something awful was going to happen or she was going to lose either of them. Today was different. Today everything was normal. Everything was serene. They were about to sit down to dinner together while the snowstorm slowly began to coat the world around them.

“Want to get her set up while I fill our bowls?” Jemma asked, canting her head to a slight angle and fixing Daisy with a curious expression.

Daisy grinned. “You’re the boss!” She stole another kiss as she weaved around Jemma and headed to the fridge, grabbing Lily’s favorite cup from the drain board on her way by.

“It’s about time you figured that out,” Jemma quipped, her lips twisted into a lopsided smile as she used a ladle to fill up two large soup bowls, one for her and one for Daisy. She moved to the pot on the stove and stirred the warm spaghetti-o’s, pulling the spoon up to blow on it. She stopped short of testing the temperature by eating the spoonful herself and, instead, turned around with a hand posed under the spoon to catch any sauce that dripped from the spoon. “I can’t do it – temperature test!” She said as Daisy was on her way by with Lily and her little cup of milk.

Without missing a beat, Daisy leaned over a bit, mouth open, and sacrificed her taste buds to the Campbell’s Sodium Gods on her way by. Daisy was better acquainted with canned monstrosities like Spaghetti-o’s from her younger years of terrible eating habits – which she had blamed on monetary situations even though Jemma often called her on her junk food consumption right up until her pregnancy with Lily made her crave mostly health food. “Test pilot says all systems go, ready for launch,” Daisy assured as she finished chewing and swallowing the small mouthful on her way to the dining room table.

Though she was smiling, Jemma scrunched up her nose again as Daisy did the drive-by temperature taste test. She shook her head and picked up the small pot so she could spoon some of it into a much smaller Lily-sized bowl. Daisy set Lily up in her booster seat and hooked her bib around her neck since she was going to be eating a highly splashable meal before she went to help Jemma finish carrying everything to the table so they could get down to eating their meal.

\---

Once dinner was through, Daisy and Jemma tag teamed each other on the very important mission of trying to tire out the little ball of energy known as their daughter. Lily was so excited about the idea of possibly playing in the snow the next day, though that even by the late evening, when bath time rolled around, Lily was still much more hyper than normal. Daisy was down to her sports bra and boy shorts by that point since she knew Lily would be splashing about in the bathtub. Unfortunately, her excitement was not contained to the bathtub, as Lily kept trying to take her adventures with her toys out of the tub with flying leaps.

By the time Daisy had finished actually getting through the cleaning part of Lily’s bath, she was drenched in water, hair soaked and dripping down her back and cold since she wasn’t in the actually warm bath water. She had pulled the plug for the drain and let the water recede as she had used a towel to dry Lily’s hair. She scooped Lily up from the tub and set her on the small mat in front of the tub to finish drying her off but, as soon as she was dropped to the mat, Lily raced out through the bathroom door.

“Lilian Melinda Simmons you get your little butt back here!!” It took Daisy a moment to scramble up to her feet and chase after the naked wild banshee toddler who was racing down the hall toward her room and leaving wet footprints in her wake. Just as she was crossing the threshold into the hallway, in her haste to catch Lily, Daisy’s foot hit a puddle that had been left in Lily’s wake and she wound up in a heap on the floor with a groan just as Jemma was racing from the master bedroom, having heard the commotion.

Jemma managed to catch Lily under her underarms from behind and hoisted her up into the air, Lily’s little legs were still swinging back and forth running midair as she was scooped up and she was giggling madly. Jemma let out an exaggerated gasp as she moved to hook an arm under Lily’s legs and wrapped the other around her back to cradle her to her chest. “ _Lily_ , oh no! Look what happened to Mama!” She turned them around in the hall in the direction of the bathroom where Daisy was still on the floor in a heap, grunting as she moved to lean up on her elbows with a grimace.

Lily’s giggles died on her lips as Jemma moved her to rest her against her hip.

Now that she wasn’t running around, Lily was also starting to get cold from being wet, so she wiggled about, trying to get as close to Jemma as possible, one arm hooked around her shoulder as Jemma walked back toward Daisy. “This is why we don’t take off running in the halls after bath time without drying off first…” Jemma said in a sweet but stern tone. Lily pushed her fingers into her mouth and frowned around them. The fingers of the hand around Jemma’s shoulder began to absently twist into random tufts of the hair along the back of Jemma’s neck.

“M’sorry, Mama,” Lily murmured around her mouthful of fingers, her ‘R’s morphing into ‘W’s as the sounds muffled together because of their obstruction.

“Are you okay?” Jemma asked. She shifted Lily to her left side and adjusted her grip so she could reach her right hand down to help pull Daisy to her feet.

“I think so,” Daisy nodded as she let Jemma help her. She felt multiple joints pop and crack as she moved and tried not to grimace. Lily murmured another apology into Jemma’s shoulder. Daisy pushed her lips into a smile and ruffled up Lily’s still damp hair. “I’m okay,” she promised. “C’mon, let’s finish getting you into your pj’s,” she held her hands out toward Lily and Jemma waited until Lily started to lean toward Daisy and reached out for her before she turned and leaned. Daisy let out another long grunt, this one exaggerated as she pulled Lily into her side and turned back toward the bathroom, but not before Jemma leaned over and kissed her shoulder.

A few minutes of drying, coddling, and helping into pajamas, once they were finally finished in the bathroom, Daisy wrapped Lily up in her favorite blanket and scooped her up off the floor again. This time she felt the pops and cracks in her lower back as she stood up straight.

“Ready to go read with Mummy?” she asked a still somewhat sullen Lily. Lily nodded against her shoulder as Daisy bounced her on her hip a bit on the walk to the doorway, where Jemma had stood watching them with a small smile on her face.

“It’s my turn for Lily time?” Jemma asked with exaggerated excitement. Lily looked at Daisy who widened her eyes and nodded. “Hooray!” Jemma cheered and held her hands out toward Lily. Lily glanced at Daisy once more and Daisy smiled and kissed Lily’s cheek. Lily reached out for Jemma, her hands gripping fistfuls of her blanket and Daisy made the baby pass to Jemma.

“I’ll be in once I finish cleaning up,” Daisy assured and stole a quick kiss from her wife. Jemma just nodded and turned to walk away, chattering excitedly the whole way to Lily’s room about what book Lily wanted to read. Daisy smiled as she listened and then turned around to face the mess of the bathroom. She let out a sigh and started drying the floor and cleaning up the mess from bath time. When she was done, she went to the master bedroom and slipped in for a quick shower of her own. It was much too short for her back’s liking but at least the water was nice and hot. When she was finished, she did her best to dry her hair as much as possible with a towel and slipped into a pair of flannel pajama pants and a long sleeved thermal pajama shirt. She tugged on a pair of socks and padded to Lily’s room, where Jemma was sitting in the rocking chair, quietly reading to Lily in animated tones as Lily struggled in her lap to keep her eyes open, waiting for Daisy to return since she wanted to say goodnight.

Daisy stood in the doorway for just a few extra moments watching without making her own presences known. Quite often Jemma opted for reading Lily the books that had analytical learning built into them – alphabets, numbers, even some that had science related things in them designed specifically for reading to very young children. Daisy always thought it was adorable and she wasn’t about to deny that reading to a kid was obviously a good thing. Lily seemed to keep up easily with absorbing information around her even if her ability to relay things back still came out in what Daisy liked to affectionately refer to as ‘alien warble.” Some of the books in the 0-2 years ranges that they had needed to be retired barring any days where Lily was extremely tired because she had memorized them and bored of them. There was no shortness of pride when Jemma had realized the need to start integrating books that were beyond what their daughter was supposed to be able to comprehend for an average child of her age.

Right now, however, was one of those moments – the kind that Daisy wanted to absorb and remember forever. Lily was half asleep in Jemma’s lap, leaning back against her shoulder with Jemma’s arms wrapped around her and holding the book in front of them for both of them to see. Lily yawned every so often and then shook her head as she tried to rub the sleep from her eyes with the hand that wasn’t holding onto the end of her baby blanket. Jemma’s face hovered close to the side of Lily’s head so that she could press a kiss to the side of it whenever she turned the page of the book she was reading which, in this instance, happened to be _Giraffes Can’t Dance_. In this moment, Jemma’s brain ceased to analyze what was before her in terms of formulas and equations or scientific methods and data report conclusions. Jemma was simply a mother reading to her daughter about Gerald the Giraffe, who wanted nothing more in life than to be able to dance even though his legs were too skinny and his neck was too long.

“ _With that, the cricket smiled and picked up his violin_ ,” Jemma actually smiled as she said it, the act ringing through her quiet and docile tone as she rocked them slowly back and forth to help further lull Lily toward sleep. “ _Then Gerald felt his body do the most amazing thing. His hooves had started shuffling_ ,” With that, Daisy watched as Jemma’s knees picked up one at a time back and forth in slow rhythm as she pushed her feet to her toes to shuffle her legs and Lily’s. “ _His neck was gently swaying,_ ” Jemma added a slow back and forth sway to guide them both side to side as she read the motion, “ _and his tail was swishing around._ ” At the same time, a practiced motion from reading the book the same way every time Jemma read it to her, both Jemma and Lily wiggled in their spots, Jemma on the seat of the chair, Lily seated on her lap, to move as if swishing their own tails.

Daisy couldn’t help the adoring smile that broke and spread all the way across her face, baring most of her teeth as she softly expelled a chuckle, pushed off from the door frame and headed into the room. Lily let out a short, sleepy giggle in mimic of the sound. “Mama,” Lily smiled around the thumb she had stuffed into her mouth, her blanket hung from the crook of her elbow. She squirmed in Jemma’s lap and her free hand came up to absently tug at a tuft of her own hair, a sure sign that she was exhausted and ready for sleep.

Daisy smiled at Lily. She grabbed the empty rocking footrest that went with the rocking chair and pulled it over next to the rocking chair on the side Lily was seated towards. “Lily,” she replied as she always did when Lily said her name but didn’t ask any other questions or offer any other statements. Lily smiled around her thumb and turned to look back over at Jemma and then back down to the book. Just as Jemma was turning the page and leaning over to kiss the side of Lily’s head, Daisy leaned over and pressed a kiss to the other side. Lily let out a soft little giggle and squirmed about in Jemma’s lap, to snuggle in closer to her, resting her head into the front crook of Jemma’s neck and shoulder. She stopped fighting her eyelids as much now that both of her moms were there and by the end of the book, she was asleep against Jemma, inhaling and exhaling slow, even breaths. Jemma closed the book and Daisy watched as she rested the bridge of her nose against the side of Lily’s head and inhaled a deep breath before she pressed a kiss into her hair.

With another fond little smile on her face, Daisy pulled herself to her feet. Jemma was grimacing at the sound of Daisy’s back popping with the effort but Daisy still had a cheerful smile on her lips as she leaned over and stole a kiss while she reached out to hook Lily under her arms, baby blanket and all, and pulled her up and against her shoulder despite her sleeping dead weight. Lily only stirred slightly, burrowing into the crook of Daisy’s neck and, as if unconsciously realizing that she recognized the scent of her mama, exhaled a long sigh and snuggled her face closer. Daisy carried Lily over to her crib, where the outer rail was already lowered. She carefully leaned over the currently hip height bar and laid Lily down. As soon as her head was on the pillow, Lily wormed around in her sleep until she was twisted arms and legs in their normal, flailed about positions, gripping her baby blanket close to her cheek. Daisy grinned and, tucking her hair behind her ear, kissed Lily’s forehead as she tucked the regular covers around her. She stepped back and let Jemma step in to kiss Lily goodnight and lift the rail of the crib back into place. Daisy flipped the light switch to turn the lamp in the room off and set the night light next to it on dimly.

The slow trudge back to the master bedroom was quiet, each of the women yawning, stretching and massaging different sore muscles as they went. Daisy flopped face first across the bed with a groaning sigh. “Adulting is _harrrrrrrd_ she jokingly whined into the mattress. Both of them knew Daisy wouldn’t have had it any other way. Jemma chuckled and Daisy felt the mattress dip when she crawled onto it. A moment later she felt Jemma’s weight as she straddled across the back of her hips, resting back to sit on her heels. Before Daisy could say another word, Jemma’s hands had pressed firmly against her lower back, fingers curled as she kneaded the tight, knotted muscles back there with her knuckles and the heels of her hands. At the same time she leaned over and Daisy felt a series of kisses Jemma pressed into her back from the spot in between her shoulder blades up her spine, along her neck and to the patch of skin that sat just behind her ear. Daisy released a sigh that morphed into a low moan when Jemma hit the spot behind her ear at the same time that she massaged just the right spot along her lower back.

“I was going to suggest we take advantage of the temporary peace and quiet, buuutttt if you’re too tired…” Jemma’s singsong lilted words came in ghostly puffs of hot air against Daisy’s ear. Jemma capped the taunt off with a quick nibble to just the right corner of her earlobe that sent a shiver rattling down her spine while sparks of heat fluttered in her belly, starting the pull that tightened the coil of her core. Jemma’s hands spread out across Daisy’s lower back and curved around her sides. Daisy shifted under her and Jemma leaned her weight on her knees and her hands which she brought to rest on either side of Daisy on the mattress and picked her hips up to give Daisy just enough freedom to roll over onto her back.

“Mrs. Simmons,” Daisy said in a mock scandalized whisper to the woman hovering above her. Jemma’s hips pressed down against her and Daisy shifted in an attempt to find purchase that she simply couldn’t achieve from this position. Her hair hung down, framing her face as she bent her elbows but only just so to keep from leaning too close to Daisy’s gravitational pull. “Are you trying to seduce me?” Daisy teased. She pulled her bottom lip in and bit it lightly as she traced her fingers along the outsides of Jemma’s legs. One took the curve of her hip; fingers slipped beneath the back waistband of her pajama pants and pulled her hips down closer by a handful of warm flesh. The other pressed flat to Jemma’s stomach over her shirt, slipped up the middle of her torso, passed between the middle valley of her chest and stopped at the collar of her shirt. A shudder rolled down Jemma’s back and her hips shifted to grind down against Daisy’s.

“Maybe,” Jemma let the word out on the tail end of a hitched breath. “Is it working?” she asked just before her lips twisted into a mischievous little smirk.

Daisy’s hand closed around a fistful of Jemma’s shirt at her front collar and pulled her down as she started to sit up herself to bring their mouths crashing together. She tried to remember the last time they had been able to spontaneously fall into a frenzied bout of lovemaking that hadn’t been carefully orchestrated around a nap, Lily’s bedtime or without necessitating a babysitter. All thoughts ceased from her brain when Jemma’s hands roughly pushed her shirt up and were quickly up the length of her torso, cupping over, pressing into and massaging her chest. A strangled moan caught in Daisy’s throat and a moment later they were both struggling feverishly to tear each other out of their respective pajamas, crashing together each time they had to break away for any one piece of clothing to go sailing to the floor.

Before long they were collapsed into the bed, a mess of sweat slick flesh and matted hair, of lingering nail marks, swollen lips and still lightly trembling muscles while they both struggled to catch their breath. Daisy’s eyes opened, half lidded and sated as she felt Jemma’s lips against her collarbone between one of Jemma’s staggered attempts to catch her breath. Daisy’s fingers traced their way down Jemma’s back and pulled their lower halves to press flush when her hand reached the small of Jemma’s back. Their legs were twisted, laced together; stomachs touching with each inflated inhale, chests pressed together, arms wound at odd angles around each other.

“Blizzards are awesome…” Jemma murmured, happy but sleepy.

Daisy let out a snort of laughter. She dropped a kiss into Jemma’s hair. “You’re awesome,” she breathed and she felt Jemma’s lips as they curved into a smile against her collarbone.

“I love you,” Jemma whispered as Daisy was tugging the covers up and over them.

Daisy shifted after letting go of the covers and pulled Jemma closer, cuddling as close to her as she could. “I love you more, nerd,” she waited to whisper it until she knew Jemma had just nearly fallen asleep, just so that she could hear Jemma murmur a mature, sleepy, ‘Nuh-uh,’ much in the way Lily might have. Daisy snickered and kissed the top of her head before settling her head back down on the pillow and closing her eyes.

\--

**_2021 – January 5th_ **

It was sometime after one in the morning that the power had gone out. Daisy and Jemma never would have known it had happened, at least not for another couple of hours when the temperature dropped, if it hadn’t been for Lily waking up to a dark room with no nightlight and wailing at the top of her lungs. Daisy and Jemma both attempted to jump from the bed, still a partially tangled mess of limbs, and instead both wound up a mass of tangled mess in the covers on the floor.

Jemma grimaced at the grunt Daisy let out as she reached for the back of her head to rub the spot she’d hit when she had landed on the floor. “Alright?” Jemma murmured, bleary eyed but alert from the wails coming from down the hall. Both struggled out of the covers. Daisy grunted, nodded and tugged on the closest clothing item she could grope for, which happened, thankfully, to be her own underwear. She tugged the boy shorts up as she was scrambling to her feet. She was already making it for the door when Jemma called, “Shirt!” and tossed the balled up thermal shirt her way.

“Thanks,” Daisy caught it with one hand and started shoving her arms through the sleeves as she rushed down the hall in the dark. She pulled the shirt over her head and pulled it down to where it hung long below her hips as she turned to head into Lily’s room. She let out a frustrated curse when she stubbed her toe on the rocking chair’s footstool on her way staggering to Lily’s crib. Lily was practically climbing out of the crib by the time Daisy made it there. With nothing but the darkness and the shape approaching her, Lily screeched louder and in her delirious shamble, Daisy realized that not only had the overhead light not gone on when she had blindly flipped the switch at the door, but the night light wasn’t on either. “Lily! Shh, shh, shh,” she said quickly. “It’s just Mama,” she assured as she scooped Lily up right away. At once, Lily scrambled to throw her arms and legs around Daisy’s neck and waist.

“Shh, it’s okay,” Daisy spoke as soothingly as she could as her brain started to properly wake up. She grabbed Lily’s baby blanket, swaying with her as she held onto her and rubbed her back. “I know, baby, it’s dark,” She kissed what she could reach of the side of Lily’s head since her face was buried into Daisy’s shoulder and hair as she cried. One of the few things that caused Daisy physical pain that pierced right into the middle of her heart was the sound of Lily’s cries, especially so the ones that came when she was frightened by something. “It’s okay, Lily, I’ve got you,” she kept murmuring into Lily’s ear as she carried her out into the dark hallway, careful not to trip over the footstool again. She made her way back to the master bedroom, where Jemma was just finally pulling her shirt back over her head.

“Power’s out,” Daisy said as she carried a still crying, but not as loudly as before, Lily.

“Hey,” she patted Lily’s back gently. “Look, Mummy’s here too,” she said as she walked toward Jemma. “Everything’s okay, sweetheart. The lights just went out in the house because of the storm, we’re okay,” She ran her hand along Lily’s back in random patterns. She kissed Lily’s shoulder as Jemma reached out and ran her hand over the back of Lily’s hair and gently squeezed her shoulder. “I’m gonna hand you to mummy so I can go turn the lights back on, okay?”

“No, mama! Nooooo!!” Lily whimpered, clamping her legs and arms tighter around Daisy’s neck and torso into a death grip that nearly choked Daisy. She cried harder. Daisy had been the first to get into her room to get to her, so she was too scared to let go.

“Okay,” Daisy frowned. Jemma hurried to the nightstand and rummaged in the top drawer for one of the lanterns. She set it on the nightstand and felt around the base until she found the switch. A bright bluish hue of LED light filled a large part of the room as soon as Jemma flicked the switch on. Daisy adjusted her grip on Lily as she swayed. She feigned a soft gasp. “Mummy to the rescue!” she cheered. “See?” she turned so that Lily would be able to see Jemma over her shoulder. “It’s just me and Mummy here with you.”

“Hello, love,” Jemma said in a gentle tone as she held her hands out, arching her eyebrows, attempting to entice Lily away from Daisy for a hug. Now that Lily could see Jemma, thanks to the bit of light, through her tears, Lily suddenly reached her hands for Jemma over Daisy’s shoulders. It took a bit of work in the position Lily was in to pass her over to Jemma and as soon as Jemma had her, Lily’s legs were wound around her middle and her arms around Jemma’s shoulders. Her crying had subsided just a bit but she was still shaking, whimpering and hiccupping. Daisy handed the baby blanket over as Jemma went and grabbed the handle of the lantern.

“Let’s walk Mama downstairs to go start the generator, okay?” Jemma said. She waited for Daisy to tug her pajama pants and socks on and then the three of them headed toward the living room, both Daisy and Jemma offering soothing assurances as they went. When they reached the living room, Daisy first pulled the cushions off the big couch and moved the coffee table out of the way. She pulled out the sofa bed, which already had clean sheets on it in preparation for possibly camping in the living room with the fireplace. Lily began to whimper when Daisy went to the tray of boots by the door and stuffed her feet and the bottoms of her pajama pants into hers and began tugging the laces to tie them tight.

“Shhh, it’s okay, love. Mama’s gonna turn the lights on for us and then we’re going to snuggle up together down here to camp with the fireplace,” She said in a cheerful tone. “Won’t that be fun?” she kissed Lily’s forehead as Lily watched Daisy carefully, tears still staining her cheeks as Jemma shifted Lily’s weight in her arms to gently dry them off with her shirt sleeve cuff. Jemma swayed to rock Lily gently as they stood there.

“That’s right,” Daisy nodded. “I’ll be back in just a few minutes,” she said as she grabbed her heavy winter coat from the closet, tugging that and her knit cap on. Once she was bundled up, she grabbed her gloves and went to get a flashlight. She turned to Jemma. “I’ll come back in once it’s running and go grab our pillows and blankets before I get the fire going, okay?” she asked. Jemma nodded. Daisy flipped on the flashlight and kissed each of them before she headed for the back door, making sure Elvis didn’t try to follow her out.

It was _fucking cold_ out there! Daisy could barely see in front of her face with the flashlight. She mentally thanked Mack and Fitz for insisting on hooking a generator up to the main circuit breaker box inside the garage so all she would have to do is come out here to boot the generator up. After that it was coded to text her when the gas tank level reached a quarter tank so she could go refill the gas – if the generator was still needed by then. It only took a few minutes, but Daisy was shivering by the time she made it back inside the back door. “It’s just me!” she said, stamping the snow off her boots on the mat by the back door. She set the flashlight down and leaned over to untie her boots. She left them in a rubber tray by the door to let the snow melt off them. As she headed for the foyer, she undid her coat and pulled her hat off, stuffing that in the pocket. She quickly hung up her coat and ran her fingers through her hair. She smiled and gave Lily a little wink as she spotted Jemma still swaying with their daughter and murmuring reassurances, now with the living room light on, on her way to jog up the stairs.

Soon enough the three of them were curled up on the sofa bed. The living room light and the lantern were turned off but there was an orange glow through the room as the fire crackled in the fire place nearby and warmed the room even with the safety guard shut to make sure Elvis didn’t wander too close as he was already lying on the warm hearth on his back with his paws stretched in the air as if he were in heaven in the spot. Lily was already back to sleep tucked between them with her head on her own pillow, arms clutched around her blanket with her back to Daisy and her forehead pressed against Jemma’s collar.

Daisy looked across the top of Lily’s head at Jemma, who had been watching the little girl sleep. Jemma’s eyes shifted when she felt Daisy’s on her and she looked over to see an affectionate smile curled along Daisy’s lips.

“What?” Jemma whispered, her brow was furrowed in curiosity.

Daisy shook her head gently against the pillow it was resting on. “Nothing,” she whispered as the fingers of the arm she had draped around both Lily and Jemma randomly traced along Jemma’s back. “I was just thinking is all,” she lifted her shoulder in a slight shrug; the smile never left her lips.

“Yeah?” Jemma arched an eyebrow. There was a sentimental sheen to Daisy’s eyes in the orange glow of the firelight as Jemma searched them. She reached her hand out and traced the outline of Daisy’s face before bringing her hand to rest against the side of her face and gently caressed the pad of her thumb along the length of Daisy’s cheekbone.

The action only made the corners of Daisy’s smile turn further upward. “How is it possible to be this lucky?” she asked in a whisper. Jemma paused at the words and Daisy turned her head enough to kiss the heel of her hand.

“I don’t know,” Jemma replied. “But I’m not about to question it,” she smiled and lifted her head to carefully lean over Lily so she could kiss Daisy.

\---

**_2021 - January 23rd_ **

“Mummy sad,” Lily murmured, pointing to Jemma from the part of the yard she and Daisy were currently building a snowman – well, Daisy was building a snowman for Lily and Lily was wobbling around in the snow randomly throwing handfuls up in the air and letting the snow rain down with gleeful fits of giggles - from the new snow that had fallen on top of what was left of the blizzard snow from the last storm. Jemma was sitting on the porch, bundled up and with a heating blanket on her lap plugged into the outdoor socket on the wall. She had come out to watch Daisy and Lily play in the snow, but had quickly become lost in thought. It happened to both of them differently on this day. Last year Jemma and Daisy were still getting used to being parents. It had been distracting enough off and on to keep some of the harder thoughts at bay.

This year, Jemma seemed to be taking the anniversary of Carter’s death much harder. Daisy knew there wasn’t a way they could measure how sad either of them would be each year. It would hit them in different ways. Sometimes it hit Daisy at random when it wasn’t even near the anniversary. Daisy looked over at the porch as she finished shoving a branch into the side of the snowman to give it an arm. Jemma was running her gloved fingers over the pendant on her necklace; the one Daisy had given her the Mother’s day before Lily was born. It was the family tree pendant, the one with her and Daisy’s name, Carter and Elvis’ name and, once Lily had been born, Lily’s name too. Jemma’s eyes were cast down toward the floor of the porch, staring off as if into nothing. Daisy recognized that look. Jemma was lost inside herself. Her eyes were welled but didn’t seem to spill over and there was a frown tugging the corners of her mouth down.

Daisy nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “She is, but it’s okay,” she assured Lily.

“Why?” Lily asked.

Daisy looked over at her daughter. “Why is she sad?” Lily nodded and Daisy glanced at Jemma on the porch again. She moved to Lily and crouched down in front of her, reaching out to pull her a bit closer. “Sometimes there are days that remind Mummy of sad things,” She said. “Today is one of those days for mummy,” She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to explain this to someone as young at Lily. “When you’re older, kid, it’ll make sense,” she smiled and kissed Lily’s forehead. “Mummy’s going to feel sad today, and that’s okay. Tomorrow, she’ll feel better,” she said with a smile.

Lily seemed to be considering asking ‘why’ again, but after a moment, she nodded. “Okay,” She said.

Daisy smirked a bit. She held a carrot out for Lily to take. “C’mon, Frosty needs a nose,” She grinned and stepped around Lily to pick her up from behind so she could hoist her up to put the carrot into place.

After another cold half an hour outside, Daisy carried Lily into the house, giggling away as she hung upside down over Daisy’s shoulder while Daisy bounced her and made Monkey noises. She shut the door behind them then leaned over and set Lily down, but didn’t let her run away. Kneeling down, she helped Lily out of her snow gear, barely managing to grab Lily’s knit cap off her head as she tore into the house in search of Jemma. Daisy let her go, hoping that maybe their daughter could help shake Jemma’s mood. “Jem?” she called out. “We’re back inside!” she wasn’t sure where in the house Jemma was and Lily was just rushing back and forth, occasionally stumbling and tipping over before scrambling back to her feet trying to find Jemma.

“Library!” Jemma called out just loud enough to be heard. Lily came tearing into the foyer as Daisy was hanging up the last of their gear, went right to the stairs and started trying to scale the baby gate.

“Ohhhhhh, no ya don’t, Monkey!” Daisy shut the coat closet and jogged to the stairs, scooping Lily up by her under arms and settling her against her hip. She reached for the gate and distracted Lily’s attention with comments on going to find Jemma so she wouldn’t see who to work the mechanism to swing the door of the gate open to pass through it. She went through the first one and climbed the stairs, letting them through the second at the top and then turned in the hall to go to the library.

“There she is!” Daisy cheered. Lily’s feet were already pumping in mid-air as Daisy let her down to the floor with a chuckle.

Jemma looked up from her spot on the couch. She had just enough time to close the photo album she was looking through before she leaned over and caught Lily, pulling her up onto the couch. “Hello, darling,” Jemma gave Lily a smile and leaned over to kiss her but the sadness was still floating in her eyes. “Did you have fun in the snow with Mama?” She asked.

Lily nodded as she crawled right into Jemma’s personal space and stood in her lap, holding herself steady by gripping her hands on Jemma’s shoulders. Jemma’s hands were resting on Lily’s hips to keep her steady. “We make nose man!” Lily cheered without realizing she had used the wrong word.

“You did?” Jemma feigned a gasp. “A _real_ snowman?” she asked. Lily nodded her head up and down vigorously.

“Ya huh!” Lily nodded again. Jemma tilted her head and arched an eyebrow at Lily. “Yes, Mummy,” Lily corrected herself, nodding as her ‘S’ came out sounding more like a ‘th,’ at the end of the word. Daisy chuckled at Jemma’s ability to coerce Lily into correcting herself with little more than a flick of her eyebrow.

“The Force is strong with this one…” Daisy smirked as she finally made it to the couch and plopped down next to Jemma. Her fingers brushed through Jemma’s loose hair and came to rest gently along the back of her neck.

“Ack!” Jemma adjusted her grip on Lily and stiffened, pulling from the fingers. “Cold!” She actually laughed and Daisy felt almost triumphant at the accident.

Daisy’s eyebrows arched. She widened them for Lily’s benefit and let out a feigned gasp. “I…I think you’ve done it now, Mummy…yes…you’ve….you’ve angered the-,”

“Noooooooo!” Lily knew exactly where this was going as Daisy bent her arms at the elbows and wiggled her fingers – the tickle monster was coming.

“The tickle monster’s woken from hibernation! MUAHAHAHAHAAAA!” Daisy cackled as she wiggled her fingers. Lily looked at Jemma, almost panicked.

Jemma arched her eyebrows and gasped. “Oh no! What have I done?!” She lamented.

As Daisy was leaning over to reach in and tickle along Jemma’s side, Lily broke free from Jemma’s grip and took a flying leap to the tiny space on the couch between Jemma and Daisy’s legs. “NO MAMA!” She shouted sternly, pursing her lips together and furrowing her eyebrows together in anger. She put her hands out, stretching her arms as far as they would reach. “NO!” She ordered with a firm shaking of her head back and forth, determination to protect her Mummy at all costs written all over her little face. Daisy fought not to laugh. Instead she feigned shock and let her jaw drop.

Behind Lily, Jemma gasped again. “My hero!” She cheered, barely holding back her own laughter.

“Well, I guess if you’re going to stop me from tickling Mummy…” Daisy dropped her eyes and her hands to her lap and then moved to strike just as Lily was starting to lower her arms. “I’LL HAVE TO TICKLE YOU INSTEAAAAADDDD!” She quickly wrapped her arms around Lily, keeping a hand protectively behind her head as she jokingly cackled and pulled Lily down to the floor, where she knelt above the girl and went about a tickle attack as she roared with more cackles. Lily giggled madly and squirmed around on the floor, trying to worm her way free from Daisy’s grasp. When Lily started to flail a little more, Daisy leaned over and began blowing raspberries against her cheek and belly, whichever she could get to at any given moment between Lily’s shrieking giggles and wiggling around.

Jemma covered her mouth as if in shock but really it was so she could snicker at the two of them. Her sadness spell was temporarily broken by the evidence of those things she still had, tangible and perfect, right in front of her. “I’ll save you, Lily!” Jemma called when she could control her snickers again. She dove into the fray and reached out, distracting Daisy, by grabbing either side of her face and pulling it over to kiss her. Daisy wasn’t expecting it at all. Her fingers came to a standstill against Lily’s sides as she returned the kiss with reckless abandon. Jemma peeked an eye open at Lily, who was still giggling lightly and trying to catch her breath. She moved her eye and head slightly to tip off Lily that she had an open target. It took a moment for Lily to get it and Jemma reached out to Daisy’s side just as Lily was scrambling to her feet to attack.

“AAACCCCCKKK!!” Daisy suddenly cried as the kiss broke and she fell to her back. Jemma and Lily piled on top of her as they launched their dual tickle attack, leaving Daisy in a fit of hysterical laughter as she tried to break free while calling out, “CH-CH-CH-CHEATERS AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

\--

It was late in the evening, after they had put Lily to bed - Daisy had gone to clean up the bathroom and Jemma had gone to fill the tub for a bath of her own - that Daisy wandered into the master bathroom and found Jemma lying in the tub with her head on a folded up towel. The look was on her face again, the one that signaled that she was lost inside her own head once more. Her pruning fingers absently held onto the pendant on her neck as she looked down the length of the tub, blindly staring with blank eyes at the faucet slowly dripping into the pooled lukewarm water below it.

Daisy crouched down next to the tub, laying her arms along the ledge and resting her chin on her the back of her hands. Jemma didn’t notice her right away, or if she did, she didn’t acknowledge it until Daisy reached one hand free and gently stroked her fingers over Jemma’s hair, bringing her palm to rest cupped against her cheek. Jemma blinked and she started just a tiny bit. She came back to herself just enough to blink again and bring her distant gaze to meet Daisy’s. This time the sadness in Jemma’s eyes reflected back to her from Daisy’s.

“Daisy…” Jemma spoke in such a soft whisper that Daisy wasn’t sure if she had actually spoken or if she had imagined it.

“I know,” Daisy assured her with a small nod. She leaned up and over the ledge so she could drop a kiss to Jemma’s forehead. Before she could pull back, Jemma’s hand came up from the water and slipped into her hair, holding tightly onto the back of Daisy’s neck to keep her from getting away. At the same time, an unrestrained sob escaped from her throat before she could stop it. Daisy hadn’t quite expected that, but she reached out right away, dipping her arms into the water so she could wrap them around Jemma, who had already sat up and wrapped her arms around Daisy’s neck.

Daisy felt Jemma shaking as she buried her face into Daisy’s neck and hair. The crying jag came before even Jemma had prepared herself for it and so instead of just waiting until she was out of the tub and curled up in bed with Daisy so she could let out the tears, she was instead left a sobbing mess in Daisy’s arms, naked and partially submerged in the tub. Daisy inhaled a slow breath as she held onto Jemma and stroked her hair. She felt Jemma’s arms lock around her neck and shoulders to the point that Jemma’s hands held onto her own elbows as if that would keep Daisy from pulling away even though Daisy had no intention of doing so.

Daisy did, however, let go of Jemma’s hair so she could slip her arm further into the tub, hooking Jemma under the backs of her knees. Shifting around quite a bit without letting Jemma go, Daisy moved to stand up just enough to pull Jemma from the tub.

“M’sorry,” Jemma kept repeating the mantra against Daisy’s ear, stammered words broken by the trembling that rocked through her with the crying jag. “M’sorry, Daisy, I’m s-sorry,” she apologized over and over again. Jemma knew this wasn’t an easy day for either of them and she had more or less shut down today, leaving Daisy to fend for herself.

As soon as the water fell back into the tub, Daisy sat back on the floor, bringing Jemma down into her lap. She wrapped her arms tight around Jemma and rocked them for a moment. “I know,” she assured after each murmur Jemma let out. “I love you, Jem. I know,” She kissed the side of Jemma’s head, her shoulder, any spot she could manage while Jemma trembled in her embrace and tried to calm down. Daisy didn’t tell her to stop or murmur that it was okay. Jemma would understand by the words Daisy had chosen already. She reached over to the towel rack to grab both her towel and Jemma’s. She used one to dry the excess water still dripping off of Jemma and then wrapped the dry one around her shoulders and rubbed her hands up and down it along her back.

“I’m right here, Jem,” Daisy whispered into Jemma’s ear. “I’m not going anywhere. I love you,” she said. “We’ll stay right here as long as you need to,” she turned her head and sealed the promise with a kiss to the side of Jemma’s head as she continued rocking them and stroking her hand along Jemma’s hair and her back.

It took almost an hour before Daisy had pulled them to their feet, still holding onto Jemma. She had managed to pull the plug on the tub, to get Jemma into her robe and to dry Jemma’s damp hair as much as possible while Jemma still clung to her and trembled, sniffling. She scooped Jemma up bridal style and carried her out to their bed, breaking away only to peel her wet clothes off and tug an oversized shirt on before she climbed into bed with Jemma and pulled her right back over into her arms.

Jemma was calmer now, still sniffling and shedding some tears here and there. Daisy gently wiped her cheeks dry every so often. She moved her fingers along Jemma’s arm, over her back, over her hair, through the damp strands of it, over Jemma’s face, everywhere. She tried to be as soothing as possible. She kissed Jemma’s forehead.

“I’m sorry,” Jemma murmured again through another sniffle.

“You have no reason to be,” Daisy assured her, pressing their foreheads together.

“I left you to be my crutch again,” Jemma persisted, staring at her hand as she pressed it to Daisy’s chest over her heart.

“Jemma-,”

“It’s not fair to you,” Jemma sniffled. “I…” her breath hitched a moment and Daisy gently ran her hand from Jemma’s shoulder down along her arm as she waited for her to finish what she was trying to say. “I promised…” she shook her head. “I promised myself I’d never do that to you again…not after…” she sniffled once more. “Not after I left you to f-fend for yourself after it…it first happened…” she frowned at the backs of her fingers as she felt the unsteady rhythm of Daisy’s heart beneath her palm. Even now she was further hurting Daisy by admitting these things.

Daisy frowned. She felt her eyes well and her heart twitched painfully as she thought about those months, when she had been convinced Jemma didn’t love her anymore – that she was punishing Daisy for not saving Carter, for failing in her duty to protect them both. She inhaled a long breath and brought her lips to press into Jemma’s forehead, lingering there for a long time. “I love you,” she murmured against Jemma’s forehead.

“I love you,” Jemma replied, shifting closer. She felt the relief in Daisy’s muscles when she said it and that made her heart pull angrily in her chest. That was her fault. She had caused that with her blind grief after Carter was gone, had selfishly ignored the signs in front of her that Daisy just needed the reassurance that Jemma didn’t blame her and that she still loved her. It had taken Jemma so long to produce the words that she had left Daisy in despair while Daisy was feeling the same grief as Jemma. Jemma would never be able to take those months back. “I’m sorry, Daisy,” she whispered again. “I keep…I keep thinking it’ll get easier,” She murmured through another sniffle before burying her face into Daisy’s neck.

Daisy frowned to herself. She wedged her arm under Jemma so she could fully wrap both of them around her to pull her as close as possible. “I don’t think it will,” Daisy kissed the side of her head. “But I think that’s okay,” She said.

“…Why?” The way Jemma said it, through a sniffle no less, reminded Daisy of Lily in that moment.

Daisy leaned back to look at Jemma. She combed her fingers through Jemma’s hair. “Because it happened. He was ours. We did everything we could,” she whispered, her voice laced with emotion but she didn’t stop her explanation. “But we lost him. To ignore or erase the feelings those memories cause…” Daisy shook her head slightly. “Would be to forget him,” she smiled sadly and whispered. “I don’t want to do that…I don’t want to forget…the look on your face the first time we saw the ultrasound or…the way he answered questions or responded to kisses with kicks or punches to your belly…” her eyes welled as she smiled faintly at the memories. “I don’t want to forget how…” she let out a snort of laughter, “positively terrified I was every time you just…randomly stopped mid-comment or mid-step because of something he did but you were too busy observing and making mental notes to tell me what was going on – or how terrified I was of the prospect of actually being a parent and having my own family…” It seemed silly, now that Lily had been with them for over a year, that she had ever been afraid of the idea. But the fear had been there, brought about by the tumultuous childhood she had, the family she had lacked until she was well into her 20s. “Or the sheer amount of pie you managed to ingest…”

Tears were once again streaming down Jemma’s cheeks by the time Daisy finished. She turned her eyes down, sending more tears down her cheeks, at that last part and sniffled as she huffed out a startled laugh. Daisy gave her a sad smile. “It hurts that he’s gone. All the time, not just today. But he was here, he was with us. I don’t want to ever lose that, even if it hurts.”

Jemma leaned up and wrapped her arms around Daisy, pulling her in for a tight hug. Daisy held on just as tightly. They stayed that way for hours, dozing off into sleep, waking each other up every so often to make it through a particularly rough patch of thoughts. Soon enough they’d make it to the morning, Lily would wake them up and it would be another day for all of them.

\---

**_2021 - March 14th_ **

“Blood work and DNA analysis came back normal,” Bobbi said as she handed a tablet with the results on it over to Jemma.

“You mean besides the Inhuman parts?” Daisy smirked, arched her eyebrows as Jemma took the tablet and immediately looked down at it, skipping through results and graphs, absorbing it all.

Bobbi rolled her eyes. “Yes, Daisy, aside from all the weird bits she got from you,” she smirked.

Daisy grinned. “That’s what I thought,” She quipped. She looked through the glass window to the room next door where Coulson was currently galloping around, dodging toys, with Lily riding piggyback on his back. Lily was in hysterics as she clung on to his neck and shoulders while he held her under the backs of her knees. Every now and then he stopped as if he was a horse rearing back, and blew air through his lips to flap them together making horse noises and whinnying. Daisy couldn’t help the dopey little smile that tipped up her lips at the site of the grown-ass man shamelessly doing whatever he could to entertain the little girl.

“I just don’t understand how all of those markers can be active without having manifested in physical form ever,” Jemma murmured.

“They did once,” Daisy pointed out as she tore her eyes away from the scene in the other room. “Just before my water broke, when Quinn shot at us,” she flinched slightly around the eyes and grimaced at the thought.

“She knew you were in danger, perhaps?” Fitz suggested.

“That’s pretty metal, coming from an unborn fetus,” Alisha piped up from where she sat in the corner of the room, playing with a model of some form of DNA. Fitz rushed over to the desk and, gently, slapped her hands away.

“Three months of work and _every_ time you have to play with this particular model? Really?” He sighed as Alisha smirked up at him and put her hands up in surrender, feigning innocence.

“So, fear, then?” May asked as she flipped through the paper copy of what Jemma was studying on the tablet in front of her. “That’s the trigger?”

Jemma’s brow furrowed. Daisy looked between the two of them, both women looked concerned. She thought about when her powers first manifested and shuddered a moment. It wouldn’t be like that for Lily. Her powers, in technicality, were already active. She wouldn’t have to transition. “That’s what triggered mine, so…” she shrugged.

“It wasn’t just fear that triggered yours,” Jemma replied with a thoughtful frown.

“No, but the emotions that amplified it stemmed from my fear of…” Daisy trailed off and dropped her eyes to the lab table they were standing around. She drummed her fingers against the top of it and cleared her throat. “Of losing my family, of hurting you guys because I couldn’t control it…” she hazarded lifting her eyes to glance at her wife. Jemma’s eyes locked with hers and Daisy instantly regretted looking since she saw the pain in those hazel irises. Long ago Daisy and Jemma had reconciled what had happened after the temple…after Trip. Daisy knew Jemma was scared. She knew they all had been scared.

Hell, obviously Daisy had been scared. By the time Coulson had taken her to the cabin, she had been sure that she’d lost them. Daisy slowly slipped into her own trail of lost thoughts for the moment until Jemma reached over and gently brought her hand to rest on top of hers, curling her fingers around the curve of Daisy’s hand between her index finger and thumb.

Daisy gave her head a quick shake to jostle her thoughts and pressed her lips into a small smile. She gave Jemma’s fingers a squeeze. “So, fear,” she said. “Fear’s a good motivator, yes. Makes instincts take over,” she nodded.

“Lily’s been scared before, though,” Jemma said. “During the blizzard blackout she was nearly inconsolable even after we got the generator and the fire going,” She said as she looked over at Daisy.

Daisy titled her head slightly from side to side. “I suppose that’s accurate…”

“And the first time we left her, to go on our dinner date – we could hear her wailing from the driveway. She didn’t use any kind of powers then,” Jemma tilted her head and rolled her eyes up in thought, searching her brain for other examples of her hypothesis.

“You mean other than heartbreaking sobs?” Bobbi frowned. That had been traumatizing to witness even though Bobbi had known it was normal and it had taken her and Hunter a good half an hour to calm Lily down.

“But she wasn’t in danger either of those times, or any other time you’re trying to think up,” Daisy pointed out, smirking a little at Jemma after giving Bobbi a sympathetic smile. Any time Lily cried it pulled painfully at a number of Daisy’s heartstrings. She understood that pain well.

“Even so, _she_ didn’t know that. For all she knew, she _was_ in danger, which is what prompted the crying,” Jemma reasoned.

“Which she did because she knew we would respond to the crying because we always did,” Daisy arched her eyebrows and glanced around the room, hoping she was on the right track.

“Not for the dinner date,” Jemma reasoned.

“But you didn’t leave her alone for that,” May cut into the conversation. “You left her with Bobbi and Hunter, who she already knew well enough to recognize their faces and voices enough to know they weren’t a threat and, in fact, were safe.”

“Hmm,” Jemma hummed out as she considered that and looked down at the tablet. She tapped around a bit to bring up different parts of the information and gently chewed on the corner of her lower lip as she considered variables.

“Well she’s not experiencing any detrimental side effects from not utilizing any underlying powers or holding them back,” Bobbi pointed out. “I had Lincoln run those tests to be sure.”

Daisy nodded since Jemma was still studying the tablet. Jemma had been very anxious as of late about this particular issue in regard to Lily. To the best of her recollection, Daisy couldn’t recall Jemma fussing over the prospect of Lily’s Inhuman abilities other than comments in passing here and there.

“Since there’s nothing happening to harm her in any way,” Daisy said after a few moments of thought. She looked over at her wife, “I don’t think we should worry about it too much. If anything, we at least know that whatever it is, it’s there to protect her.” It had been a shield of some sort after all. Daisy had painstakingly described it in as much detail as possible to Jemma, Fitz, Coulson, May and Bobbi repeatedly in the days following Lily’s birth. She gave Jemma’s hand a small squeeze that she hoped was reassuring. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t had numerous conversations about this topic, first while Jemma was pregnant with Carter and then again while Daisy was pregnant with Lily. Those had mostly been freeform train of thought conversations.

Jemma frowned. She seemed to consider everyone’s input for a moment and then she shook her head. “No, that leaves us in the dark. The older she gets, the more interaction with other kids and their parents she’s going to have. Not knowing how or when it’s going to manifest creates a blind spot,” she shook her head. “If we can figure out the mechanics now, we can start teaching her what to do and what not to do and when it’s okay to use it.”

Daisy frowned. “You can’t just tell her not to use it – she’s one. She’s not going to understand how to interpret when it’s appropriate and then what if she needs it and doesn’t use it because she thinks we’ll be upset with her?” She reasoned, not caring that the others were present and listening.

“So, you’re saying you want to just leave her completely ignorant of the fact that she has an ability so that it scares her when it does happened?” Jemma countered, arching her eyebrows.

Daisy gaped at her. “Of course not-,”

“Because you know, the first time around when that happened, it was a bit of a disaster-,” Jemma cut herself off when she realized the words had just come blurting out. May and Bobbi dropped their eyes to the table in front of them. Fitz busied himself with gently smacking Alisha’s hands away from the model she was reaching out to poke at again.

Daisy’s eyes were cast down at Jemma’s hand on top of hers as she slowly nodded after she pressed her lips together into a tight line. “Right,” She pulled her hand free from Jemma’s and drummed her fingers anxiously on the table. “Let’s just compare two wildly different situations and try to infer a solution from them, that’s effective.”

“Daisy, that’s not what I-,”

“No, of course not,” Daisy nodded and looked over at Jemma. Her eyes were darker than normal, hurt by Jemma’s suggestion, which Jemma was currently trying to backpedal on. “Because you wouldn’t honestly think that I would want our daughter to go through what I did back then, right? You wouldn’t honestly suggest that I would want her to worry that we were going to abandon her because there was some special thing she could do but couldn’t control it, right?” Daisy hadn’t meant to snap. She hadn’t ‘snapped,’ per say even at Jemma, so much as just calmly asked the questions in what could only be described as an accusatory tone.

“Daisy, wait – that isn’t what I meant at all,” Jemma insisted as soon as Daisy let her get a word in. “Neither of us would do such a thing and you know it,” She took a step closer toward Daisy, who was too emotionally wound at the moment to do anything but take a step back at the approach. Jemma frowned. “Daisy, I’m sorry,” Jemma went on, “I…my phrasing was careless. I…you know I just want to make sure she’s safe and prepared for whatever happens, whenever it does happen…”

Daisy nodded. She knew the logic. She understood the logic behind Jemma’s suggestions. She didn’t exactly disagree, but there were parts she disagreed with. But now…now she was remembering how it had felt…to have them all afraid of her, to not know if they would ever look at her the same again, to be completely lost and alone. It hadn’t been as if she hadn’t felt that way before those weeks and months. She had spent multiple decades of her life that way. To go back to it after she had finally thought she had finally found her real family…Fitz had been her only ally back then. Now he was awkwardly standing in the room with his hand on the back of his neck, unsure, like the others in the room, that he should interrupt the sort of spat going on between Jemma and Daisy.

Daisy knew she should just accept the apology and continue the conversation, but thinking about Lily at some point being in the position she had been in like that left Daisy feeling rattled. “No, it’s okay. You’re right. Of course you’re right, you’re a super genius after all,” She backed toward the door that led to the room Coulson and Lily were in. “Why don’t you just let me know once you’ve decided whatever it is that’s best for our daughter, okay?” She knew it was harsh, she did. When her eyes met Jemma’s, she could see she had wounded her wife with the jab. Something in her pride, or her fear…whatever it was, it just stopped her from apologizing or from biting her tongue. She frowned and turned, heading through the door to the other room. As soon as she entered and Lily called out her name, Daisy plastered a smile on her face and started talking to both Lily and Coulson as she joined in on their game, passing Lily back and forth between them while Lily giggled away.

As she watched them through the window, Jemma frowned. She hadn’t meant to offend Daisy. She had just been trying to express her fears about sitting and waiting in regard to this matter.

May reached out and gave Jemma’s shoulder a squeeze. “All of us need some time to digest the test results,” She said. “Give her some time and talk to her about it later when you’re home,” She suggested.

Jemma was still frowning. She pressed her lips together and gave a solemn nod. Jemma hated waiting helplessly for things to happen.

\--

Things were still tense that evening when Daisy and Jemma were settling into bed. Jemma had tried to talk to Daisy after dinner when Lily had gone to play in the living room and she and Daisy were cleaning up but the conversation had been a very short, curt conversation – full of Jemma trying to explain and Daisy letting out ‘Mhm,’s and ‘uh huh,’s. Daisy was still upset with her and Jemma wasn’t sure how she could apologize without Daisy acting as if it wasn’t genuine. After putting Lily to bed, Daisy had gone into the library to get some work done on her computer. Jemma had decided that she should take May’s advice for the second time that day and give Daisy some more space and time before she tried to apologize again. So she settled into bed with paperwork and her tablet and tried to figure out the conundrum of an issue that faced them.

She was dozing off and pitching forward every so often as she poured over the test results in front of her while her glasses slipped down her nose. That’s the way Daisy found her, sometime between midnight and one in the morning. Daisy frowned and felt the guilt building in her gut. She walked over toward Jemma’s side of the bed and gently picked up the pile of papers from Jemma’s lap first and set them on the nightstand. She put a hand on Jemma’s shoulder to rouse her as she reached out to tug the tablet out of her loose grip.

With a start, Jemma woke and blinked. Her muscles tensed for a moment until her eyes focused through her glasses and spotted Daisy. “You fell asleep,” Daisy spoke softly as she tried not to frown at the information on the tablet screen. She pressed the button to turn the screen blank and set it down on top of the papers.

Jemma was quiet for a moment as she looked at Daisy. Daisy didn’t want to see the pleading look in her eyes so she kept hers averted. She turned to head for the bureau so that she could grab her pajamas to change into. “I was waiting for you…” Jemma answered, tentative and a bit anxious.

Daisy’s shoulders dropped when she heard the cautious tone to her voice. “Sorry…” she murmured as she changed into a pair of flannel pants and a black tank top. She gathered her dirty clothes and carried them to the hamper to toss them in since it bothered Jemma when she left them on the floor until morning. She felt Jemma’s eyes on her as she walked to her side of the bed and pulled the covers up. When she climbed under them, she rolled onto her side facing away from Jemma. “I’m here now,” she said, unsure how, at the moment, to bridge the distance she had helped create between them earlier in the afternoon at headquarters. She felt emotionally exhausted in ways she hadn’t in quite some time.

Behind her, Daisy heard Jemma shuffling around as she took off her glasses and set them on the nightstand. She heard the switch for the lamp and then the room was dark. Daisy’s eyes slowly adjusted as she felt Jemma shifting her weight on the mattress to lay down on the bed in the spot next to her. Jemma watched Daisy’s back as the muscles between her shoulders tensed and she frowned.

Jemma inhaled a quiet, steadying breath through her nose. She reached out and lightly placed her hand along the back of Daisy’s shoulder and frowned again when she felt Daisy’s muscles tense again. She pressed her palm along Daisy’s shoulder and down over the curve of her arm to her bicep. Shifting her weight to scoot closer, she kissed the back of Daisy’s shoulder and then set her chin against the top of it. Daisy closed her eyes, anxious about whatever words might come next and whatever reaction she might have to them.

“I’m sorry that I hurt you, Daisy,” Jemma whispered, attempting to keep her voice steady, though it was a bit thick with emotion. “You and Lily are the most important people in my life. If anything were to…” Jemma stopped herself and Daisy felt her give her head a small shake, unable to make herself even say it out loud. “I’m worried for her because I don’t know how other people are going to react and I worry that they’ll react as foolishly ignorant as I did when we first found out about you after San Juan…” she frowned and turned her lips down to the top of Daisy’s shoulder as she tried to rein in her guilt and her emotions.

Daisy felt her eyes begin to prick with the burn of tears welling in them. She hated thinking about the way Jemma had looked at her in that first moment when May was rushing her by the lab to get her to the basement to try and protect her from Sif. She hated thinking about the argument she had witnessed between Fitz and the others as they had cleaned up in the aftermath. She hated the way those memories made her feel even though everything had turned out alright in the end. She also hated the way her throat felt too tight to tell Jemma that she understood.

“Please, Daisy,” Jemma murmured against her shoulder. She sniffled as she lifted her mouth from Daisy’s shoulder just enough to whisper close to her ear. “I am not trying to undermine your judgement or your parenting skills in any way and I would never make an…executive decision about what we do in raising her without you, I need you to know that’s true,” she sniffled lightly. “…You have to know I would never purposefully do anything to hurt either of you…” She hadn’t meant to sound as desperate as she did when she said the last part, but it was out and she had said it.

It took a moment and a steady breath before Daisy shifted and rolled over to face Jemma. Her eyes studied Jemma’s face in the dark for a moment.

“I know…” Daisy whispered in the darkness between them.

“I’m sorry…” Jemma whispered again, just as sincerely as she had the first time, just as anxious.

“I know what you meant this afternoon,” Daisy said when she finally spoke. “I’m sorry that I…let my emotions get the best of me,” she dropped her eyes. “I don’t want Lily to ever feel like I did after the temple,” she whispered. “…I understand why we should teach her not to use it unless it’s absolutely necessary…but I hate the idea of making her learn how and when to hide who she is, or that she should have to hide herself at all.” She frowned.

Jemma cupped her hand over Daisy’s cheek. “Daisy…I don’t want to change either of you,” she whispered. “I just want to be sure we’ve done everything possible to protect her.”

Daisy closed her eyes to the touch and nodded. “I know,” she replied just as quietly. She reached up to settle her hand over top of Jemma’s. “I’m sorry, Jem,” she dropped her eyes again. “It’s my fault this is even an issue at all,” considering the DNA behind it all. If it hadn’t been for Daisy’s Inhuman DNA, well, they wouldn’t have to worry about abilities manifesting in Lily.

“…Excuse me, you can’t just take sole credit for our daughter being amazing,” Jemma blurted with a scoff. Daisy blinked. She hadn’t expected the joke. Her eyes locked on Jemma’s and Jemma finally felt comfortable enough to close the distance between them for a chaste kiss. “I love you,” She said, “both of you, exactly as you are because you’re both perfect and wonderful…and you’re both mine. I love you both, unconditionally. I would never trade anything about either of you. You’re everything to me…and you’re stuck with me even when I speak too quickly and sometimes carelessly.” She dropped her eyes guiltily.

Daisy closed the space between them and kissed her, wrapping an arm tight around her middle. “Jem, I will never,” Daisy murmured against her lips in the scant gaps between those kisses. “Not love you,” she said.

\---

**_2021 – April 4th_ **

“Look, the world is safe again for the night,” Daisy said as she looked at Coulson. “I just want to take Jem and Lily home to rest,” Her attention was pulled to the Raccoon rummaging around nearby. “Hey, get out of there – those aren’t salvage parts, that’s my equipment!” Daisy scolded as she went to shoo the rummaging raccoon away.

“Rocket,” Coulson tilted his head and narrowed his eyes to make a face as if to say, ‘C’mon, buddy, knock it off.’

The raccoon put his hands up and backed off. “Alright, alright – I was just looking, ain’t no harm in that! _Sheesh_!”

Daisy sighed. She zipped up her bag and pulled it off the chair it had been on to hoist it across her shoulders. “Can I take them home now? Jem’s been here for over twenty-four hours,” There was concern laced in her tone. Lily was only here because Daisy had come out to pick Jemma up so she wouldn’t be driving while half asleep, only to find she was still stuck running tests in the lab.

Lily was actually in the lounge, standing in front of a smiling tree-shaped entity that was seated on the floor. She tilted her head like a curious puppy as she inspected the being in front of her, trying to decide if this being was scary or not.

“I am Groot,” He said to her, still smiling as he leaned closer to her height.

A bright smile broke across Lily’s face at the introduction. Her Mama had said it would be okay to say hello. She pointed to herself. “Lily,” She said, her words partially garbled. Groot just smiled at her.

“I am Groot,” Groot replied, words the same though his tone was different – sweet and jovial. Lily took it as an invitation. Within minutes, she was climbing and swinging freely from Groot, giggling away. Every time she slipped or lost her grip, he caught her and set her scurrying back to climb once again. Every so often, he would repeat his mantra, “I am Groot,” in an almost chuckling tone, clearly pleased with this new friend and the game that came with her. Lily began to reply with echoes of “I am Lily!” between her giggles.

When Coulson finally dismissed Jemma, Daisy had gone to retrieve her from the lab. She looped an arm around her wife and led her toward the lounge room. Jemma leaned heavily into her side and left her head on her shoulder, nearly asleep on her feet as they walked. When they rounded the corner into the lounge room and spotted Lily using Groot as a (willing!) jungle gym, Daisy let out a startled, “ _Lily!_ ”

Both Groot and Lily stopped mid-swing and looked over. Lily started sailing for the floor when she lost her grip and just as Daisy was throwing her hand up to cushion her fall, Groot caught her by the leg, which left her hanging upside down and giggling madly, before she could get too far. With a rather sheepish sounding, “I, am Groot,” He held upside down Lily out toward Daisy and Jemma. Jemma was so tired and delirious she was trying not to laugh at the scene before her as Lily giggled madly and wriggled around, holding her arms out toward Daisy.

Daisy shook her head. “My relentless little Monkey…” she said as she scooped Lily into her arms and turned her right side up. She looked at Groot. “Sorry if she was a bit much to handle,” She apologized.

Groot smiled and canted his head in a small nod. “I am Groot.”

“Thank you, Groot,” Jemma smiled and looked at Lily. “What do we say?” she asked.

Lily was still fighting the last tail ends of her giggle fit. “Thank you, Groot!” She said, though ‘thank’ came out sounding more like ‘fank’ and Groot came out as ‘Gwoot.’ She waved to him and Groot lifted one of his branches and waved back.

After saying goodbye, Daisy and Jemma turned to leave as Rocket headed into the room, muttering to Groot about being a big softy while Groot merely returned a comment of, “I am Groot,” with a shrug of his branches.

By the time Daisy pulled into their driveway, Lily was asleep in her car seat in the back and Jemma was asleep in the passenger seat next to her. Both had the same exact sleep face, heads leaned back and toward their right shoulders, mouths hung open and just a very slight humming snore rattling on each inhale. She pulled her phone out as she cut the engine and made sure to get video, moving back and forth between the two of them, of their identical mini-me moment in action. She woke Jemma up with a kiss to the cheek and then went to get Lily from her car seat. Thankfully, Lily didn’t wake up on the trip up to her room or while Daisy changed her into her pajamas and tucked her into bed.

\---

**_2021 - April 25th_ **

“Where is she?” Daisy made the demand the moment she had handed off a very sleepy Lily to Mack and he had taken her to the lounge, out of earshot. Her eyes stung with the slight well of tears she had fought off during the whole trip here. They were locked, baring all her fears, with May’s as May was the first person after Mack that Daisy had run into.

“Daisy-,” May started to say, in that voice, the one that was calm and stoic and always tried to force Daisy into some kind of composed submission.

Daisy cut her off. “Where. Is. She.” The words came slowly, through gritted teeth, each one accented as Daisy balled her fists at her sides, trying to quell the panic that had set in the moment she had picked her phone up when it started ringing in the middle of the night only to hear Hunter telling her to make her way to the base as soon as possible with a very panicked sounding Fitz shouting in the background. Daisy didn’t need to understand the words that Fitz was shouting to know that Jemma had been in some kind of trouble. Daisy had spent half the night up, anxiously waiting for Jemma, May, Fitz, Bobbi and Hunter to return from a mission. They had been gone for about five days – a day and a half longer than scheduled. Daisy had only dozed off maybe thirty minutes before she had received the call. At once she was out of bed and rushing to pull on boots, a jacket and to get Lily into a coat and her fluffy monkey slippers to keep her feet warm in the car.

May pressed her lips into a resigned line and stared Daisy down a moment as if she was sizing up whether or not it was worth it to have to physically restrain a distraught, exhausted Daisy. “She’s in isolation,” May finally answered.

Daisy felt her stomach bottom out into bleak abyss of panic. Her knees were momentarily wobbling wet noodles. May reached out for her but Daisy pulled herself together just enough to take a step back from the touch with a shake of her head. She tried to bring her heart under control as it throbbed against her ribs.

“Daisy, she’s alive…” May said but the way her words tapered off, Daisy heard the underlying, ‘ _for now_ ,’ that silently accompanied them.

Daisy stepped back again when May reached for her arm. She pushed past May at a brisk pace, racing for the medical wing of the base. Her feet broke into a sprint as she ignored May calling out her name. She knew May would chase after her but she didn’t care. Her only goal in that very moment was to get to her wife; to see Jemma with her own eyes.

“Daisy, wait!” It was Bobbi who caught her, though, not May. Just as she was rushing for the isolation area’s door, Bobbi had caught her from behind, wrapped her arms around Daisy from the outsides of her upper arms to keep them immobile and picked her up off her feet to spin her around away from the door.

Daisy struggled against Bobbi’s hold and Bobbi fought to hold onto her, shouting her name to try and get her to stop her panic. When she broke free, she whirled on Bobbi, who blocked the door, holding her hands up both in an attempt to show she surrendered but also to be prepared in case Daisy tried to take a swing at her. “Get out of-,”

“I can’t,” Bobbi cut Daisy off, distress etched into her features. “We don’t know what she’s been exposed to!” Bobbi blurted when Daisy went to speak again. “We don’t know yet how it could spread to others – I won’t step away and let you willingly put yourself in a position to potentially make Lily an orphan!” It was the only way Bobbi thought she could get through the fog of fear that had clearly ensnared Daisy. May caught up, skidding to a stop behind her, leaving Daisy stuck between the two of them.

Daisy’s shoulders dropped and she felt the increased sting in her eyes as they welled over completely. There were more implications to Bobbi’s words than Bobbi may have intended. If she thought exposing Daisy to Jemma and whatever Jemma had been exposed to (or infected by? Daisy didn’t have enough information on that yet) would leave Lily an orphan…then she clearly thought Jemma was going to die. That was assuming she wasn’t dead already.

“I need…” Daisy paused and cleared her throat. She closed her eyes a moment, ignoring the way it sent hot tears coasting down her cheeks and falling off her chin. Her eyes met Bobbi’s since she was the one blocking her path. Bobbi’s own eyes were beginning to well with tears both at the sight of Daisy looking so harried and distraught and at the knowledge that this might not be one of those lucky situations their team could escape. “I need to see…” Daisy couldn’t finish the words.

Bobbi nodded. She slowly stepped closer to Daisy until she could get an arm around her shoulders. “You can…you just can’t go in there,” Bobbi said. “Not yet anyway.”

Daisy’s shoulders were hunched in defeat. Her eyes cast a ghostly gaze ahead as Bobbi led her to the observation area of the hermetically sealed room that Jemma was in. The doctor inside the room checking over monitors and drawing blood was in a white plastic hazmat suit with its own closed air system. Jemma was lying in a hospital bed in the middle of the room. The bed was propped up just slightly and around the doctor and the machines surrounding her, Daisy could make out the full scope of severity of the situation. The patches of Jemma’s skin that Daisy could see, when the doctor wasn’t in the way, were covered in what looked like painful welts and boils in various stages, though most looked ready to burst at any moment. There were odd colors among them, some angry red and blistering almost yellow with pus; others were a bluish-teal hue, half of which seemed to also be filled with some kind of blue or green liquid. Her right hand seemed to be a deep green tint around the tips of her fingers and there were ghastly carbuncle clusters all around it. It looked like a number of those had either burst on their own or had been partially lanced and were draining.

Daisy felt a surge of bile as it crashed against the back of her throat. She did her best to swallow it back as Bobbi kept her from colliding with the floor by supporting her weight with the arm she had tightly around her. May fell in next to them on Daisy’s other side. One hand came up to her mouth as she tried to stop a sob from escaping. The fingers of the other impotently pressed against the glass that kept her much too far away from Jemma. Daisy didn’t need to be a genius with multiple degrees in order to know the read outs on the machines were bad news. Most of them floated back and forth between orange and red and rarely, if ever, dropped into the blue or green zones. Her temperature was hovering around 103 degrees and Daisy could see that Jemma was both sweating but trembling as shivers rolled through her while they tried to get her body temperature down with cooling blankets. She knew it was likely the various intravenous lines going in through Jemma’s left arm more than likely held fluids that had been chilled or had something in them that would attempt to bring the fever spike down as well.

“We’re doing everything we can to keep her stable until we figure out what she came into contact with so we can treat it,” May finally spoke.

Daisy felt Bobbi’s grip tighten on her shoulders. She felt her sense of control as it started to dissipate, starting from the painful way her heart was flopping around erratically in her chest as if it were following its own roller coaster track - over, under, twisting, looping, and repeat. It radiated outward from there, coursing through her torso, all the way to every corner of her. _She’s dying!_ Daisy wanted to scream it at May and Bobbi. She wanted to push them both away and race inside to Jemma’s side. If Jemma was going to die, Daisy wouldn’t let her go alone.

“Daisy…” Bobbi said her name slowly as she felt Daisy’s muscles tense and then start trembling ever so slightly at first.

Daisy just stared through her tear blurred vision, through the thick inches of sealed glass, at the infected vision of her wife lying helpless and alone. She ignored Bobbi as Bobbi said her name again. She ignored May when May’s hand gripped her shoulder and she said something to Daisy about controlling her emotions that Daisy barely heard. It was Lily’s voice that momentarily broke the spell.

Having managed to give gigantically tall Mack the slip, Lily had been sleepily making her way through all the places in the base her moms usually were when they were here. The medical wing was one of those places. When she had seen the three of them, Lily had started trotting their way.

“Mama!” she called as she went.

Daisy’s muscles seized rigid under Bobbi and May’s grasps and in an instant, she had forced her tear wells as dry as possible. The tremors that had been pushing their way outward stopped. Daisy inhaled a deep breath and turned her eyes down. She wiped her face and discreetly sniffled before she pushed Bobbi and May away from her. Daisy turned and rushed to Lily, scooping her up by her underarms and pulling the little girl’s head gently to rest on her shoulder to keep her from being able to even catch any kind of glimpse of Jemma. “Hey, Monkey,” She murmured as she held on tightly to Lily. “Did you give Uncle Mack the slip?” she asked as she rubbed Lily’s back and carried her away from the area as quickly as she could.

“She did,” Mack nodded as he rounded a corner into the hallway they were in. “I’m sorry, I just looked away for a second-,”

Daisy shook her head. “It’s fine,” she murmured as she kept moving, pushing past Mack. She headed through the base to the bunk area, until she reached her and Jemma’s old bunk room. It took her long moments before she could keep her heart and hand steady enough to turn the knob. Once in a while, when they needed to be at the base Jemma, Lily and Daisy still stayed in the room overnight. The familiar smells of her family filled up and overwhelmed her senses as she carried Lily in. That alone almost broke Daisy again.

“Mummy home?” Lily asked just before she yawned and rubbed her sleepy eyes into Daisy’s shoulder.

Daisy clenched her eyes shut and wrapped her arms tight around Lily as she sat down on the bed and pulled the covers back. “Not yet, baby,” She lied.

“Why?” Lily asked, her tone a tired whine. She missed Jemma. Daisy knew that. She had too. This was their life. One of them had to be away for work for a mission and it was possible any time that they might not return. Daisy had thought about it often. She had thought about it long before she and Jemma had ever started on their journey to become parents. She had always worried that she might not come home to Jemma and any family they had together. Though she knew that Jemma worked in the field still as well, she had always pictured this scenario as herself not returning home in one salvageable piece. She had never pictured Jemma as being the one who…Perhaps she had been too frightened of the prospect to let those thoughts really sink in, even after what had happened with Jemma and Carter.

She inhaled a steadying breath and forced a small smile onto her face as she leaned over and laid Lily down in the bed. She pulled Lily’s slippers off and put them on the floor and then pulled the covers up to tuck her in with her blanket. Pushing little stray tufts of hair out of Lily’s face, Daisy leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Mummy will be back when she’s finished her work trip, sweetheart,” She hated herself for this lie but she told it as convincingly as she could. “I know she misses you too,” She added since that was a truth she could tell. She moved to lie down temporarily next to Lily, leaning her elbow down on the pillows above Lily’s head. She ran her fingers through Lily’s hair, gently along the side of her face and over her torso and arm and her back when Lily rolled onto her side to get comfortable. “And we’ll be here waiting to shower her in all the hugs and kisses she missed while she was away, right?” She asked in a whisper, doing her best to stay calm so she could lull Lily to sleep. Lily nodded against her shoulder. Within a few moments she was asleep and Daisy fought to hold onto the little bit of composure she had remaining. She waited an agonizingly long hour before she disentangled herself from her daughter and tucked her back in. Mack came in to swap places with her. He gave her arm a squeeze as she went by but Daisy didn’t even have it in her to muster up a grateful nod to him on her way by.

She managed to make it to one of the portable isolation pods, the ones they took on the quinjets and the bus to transport new Inhumans in, and to lock herself inside before she lost her final grip on control. The outside of the pod never moved, but the inside…the inside became a hurricane of fury. Daisy let it all loose. The walls surrounding her shook but didn’t collapse. Outside the pod her anguished sobs and pleas to the universe to spare Jemma’s life - the bargains of trade, her life for Jemma’s - they were silent to anyone outside the pod. Her fists slammed against the wall, the floors, anything close enough to catch the force of her rage, of her fear. It culminated in Daisy, lying on the floor in a heap of spent ire, of paralyzing agony, of dried, crusted saline tracks along her cheeks. Her inability to lift herself from the floor or stop staring off into nothing brought to mind the times she had walked into their room in the base and found Jemma languishing on the floor, staring into nothing and waiting for the floor to swallow her whole after they had lost Carter.

\---

“Where’s Fitz?” Daisy asked Bobbi, when she had finally returned to the isolation chamber and found the blonde positioned in a chair by the keypad next to the door. No doubt May had stationed her there to keep Daisy out.

Bobbi’s tired, red rimmed eyes rose from the tablet in her lap. She blinked at Daisy as realization dawned on her that Daisy didn’t have the whole story. Bobbi rose to her feet and motioned for Daisy to follow. Daisy felt hesitant but she followed Bobbi down the hall, her eyes staring through the thick glass windows of Jemma’s room as they passed by. Fitz was in a nearby, separate, isolation room. He was conscious, though. He was pacing the floor. His room’s walls and windows were covered in all manner of scientific mumbo jumbo, or at least that’s what it looked like to Daisy.

“What’s he-,” Daisy cut her confused comment off when she saw Fitz’s right hand. It was covered in the same green tinted carbuncle clusters that had been on Jemma’s hands. There was a clear glove around the hand and the end of the glove was wrapped in medical tape to seal it off. “Fitz…” Daisy breathed his name.

Fitz hadn’t noticed the two of them yet. He was pacing and talking to himself, muttering about equations and trying to think up things in the biochem field to help Jemma. His monitors were more stable than Jemma’s by far. His temperature was only slightly elevated. There was someone in the room with him, in the corner, wearing a white hazmat suit with one of the close air systems, like the doctor in Jemma’s room had. Alisha. It was Alisha. Fitz would shake his head and turn to her every so often as she tried to help him work through the equations.

“He had gloves on when he grabbed her and threw her into an isolation pod,” Bobbi murmured.

“And he still-,”

Bobbi nodded. “It ate through one of the gloves before he could tear it off.”

“Is it spreading?” Daisy stepped closer to the window. What if they lost Jemma _and_ Fitz?

“So far...no,” Bobbi shook her head.

“But Jemma-,”

Inside the isolation chamber, Alisha spotted Bobbi and Daisy and nodded to the window. Fitz looked up and through the writing on the window, saw them both. His eyes widened and he rushed to the window. Bobbi tapped a few buttons on the keypad next to the window to open up the communication link so it would let them all talk.

“Is it Simmons?” Fitz asked. “Is she alright?”

Daisy’s eyes stung again as they were drawn away from Fitz’s eyes to his hand.

“She’s stable for now, Fitz,” Bobbi’s voice was tired.

Fitz nodded a couple of times and turned his eyes toward Daisy. “Daisy…”

Daisy shook her head. “How did it happen?” She asked. She turned her head down and quickly wiped her cheeks off. No one bothered commenting on her tears.

Fitz frowned. He turned his eyes down and scratched the back of his head, shuffled his feet.

“She saved us,” Bobbi answered in a whisper. Daisy’s eyes shifted. She brought them to Bobbi and Bobbi watched as they shook with tears Daisy didn’t bother to stop from shedding or to wipe off of her cheeks. “We retrieved the 084 from the Hydra cell and loaded it onto the ship. One of their men had stowed away. He made a play to stab her and the 084. May dodged and set him flying right into it. Simmons…” Bobbi cleared her throat and dropped her eyes in guilt. She had been injured herself in the fight and hadn’t been quick enough.

Fitz finished the story for her as Bobbi exhaled a shaky sigh. “Jemma saw the 084 activating a defense mechanism. She pushed May out of the way and threw it into the lab on the bus, hit the emergency decontamination lever,” Fitz explained as Daisy’s eyes found their way to his. Fitz’s own eyes had welled. “It had already prayed her before she tossed it in…” He dropped his eyes and flinched at the memory of the immediate reaction Jemma’s skin had had to the toxin, whatever it might have been. “I tried…” Fitz became choked up and he shook his head as Alisha shuffled over to him in her suit and reached out to squeeze a hand around his shoulder.

“Fitz grabbed her and pulled her into the iso-pod,” Bobbi sniffled discretely and cleared her throat quietly. “We tried to slow the side effects from there. Knocked her out and dropped the temp, tried to slow everything as much as we could,” Bobbi whispered, trying her best to let it come across that they had tried everything they could to help Jemma - that they were still working on doing everything they could for her.

Daisy was silent for a long time. Bobbi reached out for her arm and thought she knew the action would hold little comfort for herself; she let it happen since she knew it would help Bobbi to dole out support. She closed her eyes as moment, shedding the last of her current tears. With a slow nod or two of her head and a sniffle, she raised her eyes again and shifted them between Bobbi and Fitz. It didn’t go unnoticed that Jemma had wound up in this situation because she had reacted protectively of the team, to save them. Were the situations reversed, Daisy likely would have done the same. Daisy might have fared better in the gambit though; she would have had her powers to work with instead of her own two hands physically touching… “Do we know what it is?” She asked when she finally spoke.

“Not yet,” Bobbi shook her head.

“We’re working on it,” Alisha finally spoke, having remained silent before then. Fitz nodded in agreement.

“How are you holding up?” Daisy nodded toward his wrapped up and sealed hand.

Fitz lifted his hand and looked at it. “What? This? It’s…” He shook his head. “It’s nothing. I’m fine. We’ll get back to work and the others will keep working in the lab to find a solution,” He answered.

Daisy nodded. She made a demand, then, that she wanted to go in to see Jemma. She didn’t care what kind of spacesuit she needed to wear, but she wasn’t going to leave Jemma in that room alone, covered in welts and sores of unknown origins. Bobbi led the way back and into one of the rooms attached to the side of the isolation hallway. Daisy stripped her way down to undergarments and passed through the first enclosed double doorway. She closed her eyes and held her breath and let the aerosol spray of disinfectant engulf her. After the spray stopped, Daisy kept her eyes closed as she felt the UV lamps kick on. She opened them when the alert over the door buzzed to let her know the door to the next chamber was unlocked.

Walking inside, she went to one of the designated suits and pulled it on, zipping it up most of the way but leaving the helmet off for the moment and sat down to pull the rubber boots on over the foot cuffs while she waited for Bobbi to come through the decon chamber. Bobbi helped her into the rest of the suit and taped the extra pair of gloves on over the suits gloves. She taped up the rim of the boots to make sure there were no gapes and then finished helping secure Daisy into the suit. She turned on the air system and it filled the already blisteringly hot suit. Bobbi carefully checked over the suit to make sure there were no pinholes or slices in it and then she taped over the zipper with a couple of layers of duct tape to make sure the last of all seams were covered over. At that point, Daisy took a few steadying breaths and headed for the secondary decon chamber. She spent a few minutes in there with the disinfectant sprays, the heat and UV lamps. She shifted on her feet nervously waiting to be in the same room as her ailing wife.

Finally the chime over the door gave her an alert notification noise and green light and Daisy opened the door and stepped through. There was a doctor still in the room with Jemma, keeping constant watch, but it was a different one from the one before, no doubt because the suits were extremely hot and they had to switch out for rest. The doctor gave Daisy a single nod and went back to eyeing up the machines and monitoring Jemma’s temperature. Daisy’s breath caught in her throat now that she could see the sores, discoloration and perspiration all over Jemma’s skin up close. The horrific sight didn’t stop Daisy’s steady march into the room to Jemma’s bedside. She carefully moved to sit on the edge of the bed next to Jemma’s hip.

Daisy’s eyes moved constantly, taking in the terrible condition Jemma was in. Now that she was next to Jemma, she could feel the full extent of the tremors shaking through her wife’s body. It reminded Daisy of those long weeks after San Juan when she shook without control. Daisy could feel the burn in the bridge of her nose and she blinked a few times to clear her vision. Like she had after they had lost Carter, Daisy let this vision of Jemma burn itself into her mind’s eye. After they found a way to get Jemma through this, Daisy would keep this vision tucked into her brain as a vivid reminder of the fact that she was never going to let this happen again. If they found a way to get Jemma through whatever this was.

With great care, Daisy slipped her gloved hand under Jemma’s and resisted the urge to squeeze it into a death grip. As much as she wanted to tether Jemma here, to keep her from slipping away, she didn’t want to cause her undo pain. Just picking up her hand caused the muscles in Jemma’s face to contort. “I’m sorry, baby,” she whispered the apology as she reached the other gloved hand out to gently brush some of Jemma’s matted, sweat soaked strands of hair off her forehead. Despite the glove-clad touch, Jemma shifted closer to it and murmured Daisy’s name without opening her eyes.

Daisy inhaled a steadying breath. “I’m here,” she spoke in a soft tone but loudly enough to make sure Jemma would hear it. “I’m here, Jem,” She repeated, keeping her voice as steady as she could. With what appeared to be great effort and strain, something Daisy could see pulled across Jemma’s facial muscles, Jemma’s eyes cracked open. Daisy exhaled a stiff sigh and forced a smile as Jemma’s eyelids lifted higher and hazel eyes fought to bring her face into focus behind the clear plastic shield of the suit.

“Daisy…” Jemma murmured her name from dark, cracked lips.

“I’m here,” Daisy promised. She felt the fiery tingle of longing as it itched its way through her palms and fingertips, burning to actually touch Jemma, to hold onto her and promise that everything was going to be okay, to promise that she wasn’t going to let this thing take her away. Jemma’s hand clamped tight around Daisy’s glove hand. Daisy glanced down at the grip. Jemma’s hand shook now with fear, not just cold shivers. She turned her eyes back to Jemma’s half-lidded ones. Once again, she pulled up a small smile. The deep sear welled within her and reached her lips. She wanted to tear the suit off and kiss Jemma’s fear into oblivion. But there was Lily to think about and Bobbi’s earlier comment about leaving Lily an orphan rang through her ears as a warning to ignore her immature urges.

“Hey,” Daisy kept the small smile on her face and ignored the fact that she knew Jemma must be seeing the fear in her eyes. She reached her gloved hand out to gently touch along a few small patches of forehead and the side of Jemma’s face that didn’t seem to have any blisters, boils or marks on it. She waited for Jemma’s eyes to focus on hers. Daisy let out a breath. “You have the kindest, most beautiful, welcoming eyes I have ever seen,” Daisy spoke softly, in earnest as she tried to distract them both from the fear. Jemma’s brow knitted together. “That’s why I was glad Lily got yours and not my guarded, weary dark ones,” she said.

Jemma’s other hand came up, a monitor clamped to her index finger and intravenous lines in both the back of her hand and her elbow, and fell to rest on the side of Daisy’s helmet since it couldn’t reach Daisy’s cheek. “Love you…” Jemma’s eyes welled with tears. “D-don’t…” she struggled to produce the energy to form words. “Don’t let her…forget me?” she pled.

Daisy shook her head and let her own tears fall freely inside the suit. She wanted to rip the stupid suit off. “You’re not going anywhere,” Daisy told her firmly. “We’re going to fix this, Jem. You stay with me,” she ordered. “Don’t you dare leave,” Daisy couldn’t lose Jemma. She couldn’t lose this family. This was the ‘forever family,’ she had searched for her entire life, the one that had taken her decades to find. It couldn’t be taken from her so easily, so suddenly. Jemma’s eyelids were too heavy to hold up, though she fought to keep them open, they slipped closed.

“Isn’t there something you can do to warm her up?” Daisy snapped at the doctor as Jemma’s body trembled with cold shivers. Despite feeling cold, Jemma was sweating profusely, almost losing water as quickly as they could replace it intravenously. Daisy wasn’t blind. She had seen the temperature reading on the monitors and she knew Jemma was hovering between 102.5 and 103 degrees.

“If we let her fever burn her up unchecked, it’ll cook her brain,” the doctor spoke in a calm but very blunt tone.

Daisy felt her impotence as she struggled for some way to protect Jemma from what was happening to her. She used the small washcloth the doctor handed her to gently wipe some of the sweaty from Jemma’s forehead and neck as floods of various memories from their lives together raced through her mind’s eye and overwhelmed her.

\---

Outside the isolation room, Coulson and May stood watch over the scene while Bobbi waited for Daisy since she would eventually need assistance freeing herself from the hazmat suit.

“When’s Lincoln scheduled to land?” Coulson asked as he stood, arms crossed over his chest, a frown upon his lips and deep valleys of worry creases carved across his brow.

May tore her eyes away from the scene in front of them and glanced briefly at her watch. Her emotions were held deeply in check currently, ensuring that none of them would seep to the surface and give her away. Internally, her heart wrenched and ached for the couple on the other side of the glass. “ETA is six minutes out,” she answered, sheltering her concern and pain behind her business-as-usual tone.

“Mm,” Coulson gave a solitary nod without looking over at Melinda. She didn’t need to show it, he knew she was just as anxious and worried as he was at the moment. “Where’s Lily?”

“Asleep in their old bunk,” May answered again. There was a slight grimace around her right eye and Coulson picked up on it but didn’t say anything about it just yet. May was either slipping in her old age…or she had been injured at the site and had yet to have the injury assessed for want of staying to keep watch over Simmons.

Coulson nodded again. “Did he recognize the symptoms?”

“What?” May asked.

“Lincoln,” Coulson clarified.

“It’s possible,” May replied as she looked through the glass as Daisy wiped at the sweat on Jemma’s brow and spoke softly to her while she flitted in and out of consciousness. “But he didn’t say so,” she added.

“Has Fitz made any progress coming up with any theories or plans?” Coulson asked.

“He’s still working on it,” May answered. “His hand is deteriorating, but so far it hasn’t spread from it,” She added.

Coulson let out a rumbling hum in response as he nodded. The two fell into silence, side by side at the thick glass window feeling restless and helpless like the rest of the team working on the solution for this very epic problem at hand.

Footsteps announced Lincoln’s presence as he skidded to a stop behind Coulson and May after having run directly from the hangar bay to the isolation ward. His eyes landed on the window first and he slowly shuffled toward it, eyes blown wide as he took in Jemma’s appearance. His eyes darted from all of the varying boils, carbuncle clusters, blisters, sores and discolorations to the monitors and their readings.

Coulson and May exchanged a brief glance. “Lincoln?” Coulson spoke his name as a question.

“I’ve seen this before,” Lincoln exhaled.

Coulson and May exchanged another glance before each stepped up to stand on either side of the man. “You know what it is?” May asked at the same time that Coulson asked, “How do we stop it?”

Lincoln turned to look at Coulson. “We need Jiaying’s journal.”

\---

“Why didn’t you say anything before?” Fitz snapped at Alisha.

Alisha raised her glove clad hands in defense. “I didn’t know-,”

“We’ve been wasting all this time and we could have been further along, meanwhile Simmons is-,”

“It happened before either of us ever knew Afterlife existed,” Lincoln cut in from the other side of the glass of Fitz’s isolation room.

“Then how could you have ‘seen it’ before?” Fitz snapped.

“Fitz,” May’s voice was its usual calm but commanding tone. “Losing our heads is not the way to help Simmons right now.” May narrowed her eyes at Fitz when it looked like he was going to protest.

“Fine,” Fitz muttered. He shifted on his feet, anxious, irritable and unwell himself, though it was on a much less severe level than Jemma.

“I knew because I heard rumors,” Lincoln answered. “Then I saw this,” he flipped through the pages of one of Jiaying’s journals and then held the journal up to expose it’s pages, complete with detailed drawings of people covered in all sorts of sores like the ones currently covering Simmons as well as Fitz’s hand.

Fitz stared at the book. He stepped to the window and let his eyes roam over the pictures and some of the words.

“How do we stop it?” Coulson asked.

“You can’t…” Fitz whispered as his eyes landed on a starred notation at the bottom of one of the pages; _Human mortality rate – 100%_.

\---

Daisy let her tired eyes close for a few moments. All the time spent in the hospital room after not getting much of any sleep in the night coupled with the emotion laden stress weighing down on her had left Daisy exhausted. Her head had just tipped forward in the hazmat suit when one of the monitors off to the side of Jemma’s bed started sounding off an alarm. Daisy startled awake with a jolt of fear. Her eyes jumped from the monitor, which was keeping track of Jemma’s heartbeat/rhythm, to Jemma who seemed to be unchanged from the state Daisy had last seen her in before she had closed her eyes – unconscious, sweating and shivering.

Daisy looked around the room and then remembered the doctors were in the middle of switching shifts. She turned her eyes back to Jemma. “Jem?” she asked as the machine suddenly began to beep wildly. A moment later, Jemma’s body began to convulse and with it, Daisy’s surged with terror. Daisy jumped to her feet. Was this a seizure? What were you supposed to do when that happened? Were you supposed to hold someone down? “Jem!” Daisy shouted, unable to stop herself. She tried to keep Jemma’s flailing limbs from bashing into things as she reached down to try and roll her over onto her side. Daisy was thrown about against the bed rail a number of times as she fought to keep Jemma’s body under control. She could feel her own heart beating almost as wildly as the machine monitoring Jemma’s. Her eyes were wild and blown wide with fear as she watched Jemma begin foaming at the mouth.

Daisy knew it would be awhile before the decontamination doors processed and let the next doctor through, so she tried to force her fear as far from the surface as possible while she did her best to hold onto Jemma. Just before the door opened to let the doctor rush in, Jemma’s body stopped thrashing about and stilled on the bed. Daisy stayed completely still, leaning over and holding Jemma to the bed. Daisy was practically holding her breath as most of the monitors began to return to normal, though some of the alarms kept going since they needed to be manually silenced. “Jem,” Daisy whispered her name breathlessly. Jemma was still breathing, but she was still unconscious.

The doctor rushed to the side of the bed Jemma was facing and began checking her over and giving Daisy instructions for helping to move Jemma back onto the bed properly. “Is she okay?” Daisy thought this was a stupid question to have asked but it came out anyway.

The doctor looked up from Jemma and Daisy saw her open her mouth to speak, only to have it hang there a moment. The doctor’s eyes widened as they focused on something. “Daisy…” she said through a soft gasp.

Daisy looked down at herself and spotted the problem. Along her forearm, there was a large gash in the suit, a tear that had happened in the tussle to hold Jemma down to the bed in an attempt to protect her during her seizure. Daisy hadn’t noticed it in all her panic. The gash was accompanied by not only Daisy’s own broken skin, but also some of the pus from a few of the welts and blisters that had popped open on Jemma in the struggle of her body’s thrashing about. Daisy blinked at it, still too caught up in her fear to realize the full weight of what this meant in that moment.

\---

“There has to be a way!” Coulson shouted, throwing down the journal he had been poring through for nearly an hour. He rubbed his tired eyes and the bridge of his nose.

May stood in the corner of his office, silent and waiting for him to make another outburst or two.

“There’s nothing,” Lincoln shook his head as he frowned down at another of the journals that he was searching through. “Humans have no way of fighting it off,” He turned his eyes down to the book in his lap. “They can only prolong it…”

“Phil-,” May began to speak only to be cut off.

“No!” Coulson snapped. He looked at May, then Lincoln and then back again. “This is not the way we lose them – they’ve survived worse. There _has_ to be another solution!”

“ _Phil,_ ” May said his name more sternly this time.

Coulson’s shoulders sunk. He frowned as he turned his eyes to her. “So, what? You want me just to let Simmons die and then we, what? Chop off Fitz’s hand? Is that it?”

“Well, he wouldn’t be the first to lose an appendage,” Mack spoke up from his seat. He eyed up Coulson’s hand and then arched an eyebrow.

Coulson turned to Lincoln. He pushed the journal he had been poring over into Lincoln’s hands. “Find me a solution,” he said. “That’s an order.” Coulson ignored all other eyes on him and turned to leave the room.

May’s phone rang and she pulled it from her pocket, pressing it to her ear. “What?” she asked immediately. Coulson stopped in his tracks and waited. In the next moment, May was sprinting out of his office and Coulson raced to follow with the others hot on their tail.

\---

Jemma’s eyes cracked open. Half lidded, they focused through the blurred haze that clouded them, searching her surroundings, unsure where she was and what was going on. She tried to shift and immediately felt the surge of pain that radiated through her entire body. A strangled groan escaped her and the sound caused whoever was in the chair pulled up close to her bedside to wake with a start.

“Hey, hey…try not to move, Jem,” Daisy’s voice floated in a soft tone to her ears. It sounded different now than it had before, when she had been speaking through her hazmat suit. Jemma’s eyes closed for a moment. Hazmat suit. Daisy was in a hazmat suit because Jemma was in the isolation ward. Her thoughts came back to her in a jumbled rush. In the next moment Jemma felt the sensation of cool fingertips against her left temple and cheek before they combed through her hair. Her hand clamped around Daisy’s, ignoring the pain it caused her with the carbuncle clusters surrounding her fingers and palm, and she knew immediately that the hand she was holding was not covered in safety clothing of any kind. It was bare.

All at once, Jemma’s eyes jumped all the way open. Her pupils were blown wide with fear at the realization and she had suddenly sat bolt upright in bed. The sudden movement caused her a spinning dizzy spell and she swayed in her seat.

“Jem,” Daisy said calmly as she immediately let go of Jemma’s hand so she could reach out to steady her. “Hey, it’s okay,” She lied as she tried to ease Jemma back down on the bed. “Easy,” she spoke softly. “It’s alright, just lay back-,”

“No,” The word escaped Jemma’s mouth in a breathless gasp as her hands came up to touch Daisy’s face and shoulders. She wasn’t in a suit – _why wasn’t she in a protective suit?!_ “…Lily…”

Daisy knew exactly what Jemma meant when she said their daughter’s name. She ran her tongue along her lips and pressed them together briefly, steeling herself against the emotions that kept welling within her, knowing that she had inadvertently caused what Bobbi had wanted to prevent. Lily very likely was going to grow up an orphan. The only comfort Daisy could find regarding this fact was that it would be different for Lily than it was for Daisy. Lily had an entire family that would take her in and raise her, would keep her safe and make sure she had a happy life full of love.

“She’s okay,” Daisy assured Jemma. Lily didn’t know any of this was happening, but she knew that May and Coulson were going to have to tell her sometime soon. Daisy was sitting in the chair; her hazmat suit was on the floor next to her. Bobbi had passed a pair of scrubs in for her to pull on. She had been sweating previously from the heat of the enclosed hazmat suit but now she knew that the continued heat soaking parts of her scrubs – in the underarms and along her back – were due to the beginning bits of fever starting to move through her. Her right forearm was wrapped in multiple layers of gauze.

Jemma’s eyes welled and she threw her arms around Daisy’s shoulders in some form of desperation. The sobs that escaped her throat sent Daisy momentarily spiraling back in her mind to that moment when Jemma had woken up in the hospital after her surgery and Daisy had had to tell her Carter was gone. Daisy’s arms wrapped around Jemma’s middle and held onto her back, simultaneously trying to hold onto her as tightly as possible while trying not to hurt her. “No,” Jemma kept repeating before the sobs, “No, no, no…you can’t…not you,”

Daisy ran her hand along Jemma’s back as Jemma began to blurt apologies between sobs. She closed her eyes for a long moment to steady her resolve. Jemma needed her to be strong, so that’s what Daisy would do. “Shhhh,” she murmured gently into Jemma’s ear. “It’s okay Jem,” She pressed a kiss into Jemma’s hair against the side of her head. Though she knew she had become doomed as well, it was a relief to be able to touch and hold onto Jemma, regardless of their conditions, in this moment. She gently rocked with Jemma in her arms and murmured into her ear, trying her best to calm Jemma down to hopefully prevent her from another seizure, or worse.

“I love you,” Daisy whispered as she stroked her hand over Jemma’s hair and down along her back. Jemma mirrored the comment, murmuring it into Daisy’s neck.

“How?” Jemma asked, cradled in Daisy’s arms, resting her forehead into the crook of Daisy’s neck as she sniffled.

“It was an accident,” Daisy said. “Tear in my suit.” She wasn’t about to tell Jemma that the tear happened in the aftermath of her having a seizure so that Jemma further blamed herself.

“She’s going to be all alone…” Jemma broke the silence that fell between them again, sniffling at the thought of their daughter being completely parentless.

“She’ll never be alone,” Daisy replied. “They love her as much as we do. They’re going to take care of her, just like we planned before she was born, just in case,” She reminded Jemma.

“She’s going to hate us,” Jemma murmured. “We’re abandoning her…”

Daisy clenched her eyes shut and tensed at the idea. She had always been scared of something happening to keep her from coming home to whatever family she and Jemma established. She had told Jemma as much when they had first started talking about kids. “No one is abandoning anyone,” Daisy asserted. “Don’t you dare give up on me, Jemma. We’re going to get out of here.”

Jemma was silent. She forced herself to nod against Daisy’s neck but it was clear she didn’t believe what Daisy was saying to her. The shivers were still there, even though Daisy felt the heat escaping Jemma’s skin.

“Promise me,” Daisy spoke first, her voice thick with emotion. “Promise me you’re not going to give up, Jem. I need you…” she sniffled. “I need you to keep fighting. We need time…promise,” she demanded.

“I promise…” Jemma spoke earnestly, though the exhaustion was clear in her deflated tone. “I’m scared,” she whispered against the flesh of Daisy’s neck.

“Me too,” Daisy replied honestly. She moved to lean Jemma back on the bed again, stroking her hair and along clear spots of her cheek. “I’ll be right here, okay? I won’t let go. Just hang on for me, Jem, please…” She tried to blink her tears away but failed. Jemma nodded slightly as her eyelids slipped closed again and the fever pulled her back into the unconscious world.

Daisy hung her head and cried as Jemma slept, letting her shoulders shake, allowing the fear to claim her while Jemma wasn’t awake to see it.

Outside in the hall, May, Coulson, Mack and Lincoln arrived at the thick glass partition to see Daisy inside, dressed in her scrubs, her arm wrapped up in gauze and her hazmat suit discarded on the floor. Daisy wiped her cheeks clean but her back was to the window since she was focused on Jemma.

Bobbi was standing at the window, having left the decontamination area in her own pair of clean scrubs. Her eyes were red rimmed and her arms were crossed. She wiped a stray tear from her cheek.

“What happened?” Coulson demanded. His eyes were wide with horror.

“Simmons’ temperature spiked and triggered a seizure,” Bobbi answered. “The docs were doing a shift change. In the struggle to hold her still while waiting for the doctor to get through decon two, she tore her suit and cut her arm. Some of the pustules broke and seeped into the wound…” Bobbi sniffled and steadied her breathing. She shook her head. “There was nothing we could do…”

May reached out a discreet hand and rested it between Bobbi’s shoulder blades as the gravity of this situation weighed on them.

Lincoln shifted on his feet and cleared his throat nervously. When several pairs of eyes turned his way, he scratched at the back of his head and cleared his throat again. “Daisy, uh…Daisy was inoculated against it…” He muttered toward his feet.

“ _What_?” Coulson snapped.

“When?” May asked at the same time.

“You have a vaccine and you didn’t tell us?” Bobbi’s knee jerk reaction had been to snatch Lincoln up by the collar of his jacket to force his eyes to hers, which were currently filled with murderous anger.

“I – no! I don’t! We did…” Lincoln stammered. “It doesn’t work on humans!” He persisted. “It’s…it’s completely fatal to humans, but…”

“But you figured out a way to save yourselves and decided who cares – fuck those people who aren’t like us??” Bobbi snapped, shaking Lincoln by her grip on his collar.

Lincoln’s eyes widened. “What?! No! That’s not – I didn’t know it was still possible to be infected! Part of the transition was to administer the vaccine as a precaution – not for the inhumans but for the people waiting to transition. It was similar to herd immunity – it kept them from being hit by it, if they were hit by it, they’d need to be rushed through the mist, and - and so it was instituted as mandatory before I ever arrived! I didn’t have direct access to it until someone went through the mist!” Lincoln stammered.

For just a moment, May appeared as if she were willing to let Bobbi throttle Lincoln. The moment passed and May’s usual neutral glare filled her features. She reached for Bobbi’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze, one that sent a clear message that she was to stand down.

“If she’s inoculated, why does she have a fever?” Mack asked with a nod to the window.

“Low level fever is the only symptom she’ll have – other than minor irritation around the wound since it was an open cut.” Lincoln said. “Her immune system kicks in, sets the fever up and the antibodies release. In a day or so, she’ll be back to normal and her arm will heal on its own.”

Bobbi clenched her jaw and gripped Lincoln’s collar tighter for a moment before releasing it with a small shove. She crossed her arms and turned away from the huddled group to look through the window.

“What if Simmons went through the mist?” Heads turned to find Alisha…well, one of Alisha’s doubles, standing behind them in a carbon copy of the hazmat suit. None of them were sure how long she had been standing there.

“We don’t know if she has the genetic markers to allow for it,” Mack was the first to reply.

“She doesn’t,” Bobbi spoke up without looking away. She felt the curious gazes as they fell on her but she didn’t turn to look at them, only turned her eyes down for a brief moment. “She asked me to check…after the miscarriages. She thought that might have been the reason none of them took,” she explained.

Silence followed for a long time while they watched Daisy wipe off her cheeks. Daisy picked up the cool washcloth from the bedside table and began gently wiping the sweat from Jemma’s brow and neck again, keeping her hands busy, trying to make Jemma comfortable.

“Can you recreate it?” Coulson asked, his words somber as if he knew it was a longshot but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. “Tailored to humans?”

Lincoln frowned. “…I don’t think-,”

“I’ll have the doctors draw blood from Daisy, Fitz and Jemma,” Bobbi spoke up. She looked over at Coulson. “I’ll see what we can come up with,” she glanced at Lincoln.

Lincoln seemed like he wanted to protest but he pressed his lips together and gave a solitary nod of acquiescence. Coulson nodded.

“What about Fitz?” Alisha spoke. “It hasn’t spread from his hand.”

Lincoln turned to look at her. He gave her a grave shake of his head. “It will,” He said. “If we don’t amputate the hand, it’ll spread into his arm and go from there-,”

“Let’s take this one step at a time,” Coulson interrupted. He turned to Alisha. “We’ll be on our way to talk over everything with you and Fitz in a few minutes,” he assured.

Alisha nodded but her double waited there for them.

“So,” Bobbi was looking through the glass again. “Who wants to tell Daisy she’s going to watch Simmons die, but she’ll be just fine?”

“Get to work with the doctor,” May replied. “I’ll stay to talk with her.”

Bobbi nodded. She and May started for the first area of the decontamination chambers so they could get started and suit up to head inside Daisy and Jemma’s room.

Coulson looked at the others. “Let’s go talk to Fitz,” He turned to Lincoln. “After that, I want you working with Bobbi in the lab.” He stated and it was clear by his stony expression that this was an order and not a suggestion. Lincoln nodded and the group made their way around the corner and down the other hall.

\---

**_2021 – April 26th_ **

Daisy sat vigil with Jemma as her wife’s condition continued to slowly deteriorate. Daisy refused to sleep, too afraid that Jemma might slip away if she thought Daisy wasn’t there or wasn’t awake to witness it. She held tight to Jemma’s hand and continued to speak softly to her. Jemma’s bouts of consciousness were growing further and further apart. When she woke, she wheezed out random memories that happened to be floating through her head. Daisy had tried to sound hopeful, like the team would be able to find some kind of cure for Jemma if she only held out a bit longer.

In the early hours of the evening, shortly after the team had discovered and discussed all the new information Lincoln had given them, Jemma awoke but her eyes were cracked so slightly, Daisy hadn’t noticed until she spoke. “Shouldn’t have pushed you…” Jemma murmured.

Daisy sat up straighter. She moved from her chair to sit on the edge of Jemma’s bed, calmly stroking her hair. She leaned closer. “What, Jem?” She asked.

Jemma’s eyelids cracked open a bit more. A couple of stray tears escaped down her cheeks and Daisy gently wiped them away. “I pushed for them,” Jemma murmured. “You were scared…that this would happen,” She had no strength left in her to bother holding back her tears. “You didn’t want this to…” She sniffled as Daisy stared at her with her own tear-welled eyes, aghast that Jemma might actually have believed that she didn’t want the family they had fought so hard for, the one that was dissolving right out from under her in this very moment and stripping shards of her heart with it as it slipped through her fingers. “Should’ve listened-,” Jemma murmured.

Daisy leaned over and reached out to cup her hands around Jemma’s cheeks as gently as possible. She brought their foreheads together to touch, ignorant of the sores and infection but for the fact that she was trying not to hurt Jemma any further than she was already hurting physically.

“You listen to me and listen good,” Daisy ordered.

“Well,” Jemma blurted and Daisy almost laughed.

“Listen well,” Daisy put her stern face back in place for a moment after correcting herself. “Being scared that I might lose you or you might lose me, of leaving a kid behind – that didn’t mean I didn’t want a family with you, Jem. I have always wanted this as much as you and there isn’t a damn thing I would ever trade for any of you,” she spoke in a firm, earnest tone. The only exception, of course, would have been that she would have obviously traded her own life for any of theirs – Jemma, Carter or Lily – without a second thought. “I love you,” She went on. “And this isn’t over, so quit acting like y-you’re already gone,” Her voice caught a bit at the end.

A few more tears slipped from Jemma’s eyes. She gave Daisy a very small nod, but didn’t force herself to promise again that she would hold on. Daisy kissed a clear spot on her forehead. She would have wrapped Jemma up in her arms again but the decon two door opened and she turned around to find Bobbi walking in wearing one of the hazmat suits and carrying a small medical box. Daisy glanced back at Jemma, but Jemma had slipped into sleep again. Daisy frowned and stroked her hair again. She wondered if this would be the last conversation she ever had with Jemma and had to turn her eyes down to her lap to try and keep the welled tears from falling.

Bobbi stopped at the side of the bed and looked between both of them. “Daisy,” she waited for Daisy to lift her bloodshot eyes to hers and went on. “Hang in there,” Bobbi said. “We’re working on it,” She promised.

Daisy sniffled and turned her head down to swipe a tear off her cheek again. She looked at Jemma in the bed and then looked at her lap again, realizing in that moment that she would never again get to hold Lily, or sing her to sleep, or blow raspberries in the crook of her neck until she giggled for mercy. She locked eyes with Bobbi through the front clear plastic of the suit. “Bobbi…” She tried to think of how to ask the other woman to take over for both her and Jemma, to make sure Lily remembered them and how much they loved her, to make sure she was safe and happy, to do what she could to give Lily all the things Jemma and Daisy had failed to give her.

“Don’t,” Bobbi shook her head. “We’re not there yet,” she said. Daisy tried to speak again. “If it comes to that, you know I’ll do it, but...we’re not there yet,” she said firmly.

The decon two door beeped again and this time May came into the room, fully suited up and contained in the white hazmat suit. Daisy might have been exhausted and weary, but she wasn’t worn out enough not to know that having both of them in there at once did not spell good news.

“We need to talk,” May said as she pulled a chair over to sit next to Daisy. Bobbi went about her blood draws from Jemma and Daisy. She gave Daisy’s arm a squeeze when she finished with her and moved to Jemma. “We found something in Jiaying’s journals,” May said.

Daisy blinked. Her eyes locked to May’s. “M-My mother?” she asked. May gave her a single nod. Daisy glanced at Jemma and then looked at May. “…A-About…about this?” She asked. May nodded once more. She waited a moment as the pieces fell together in Daisy’s brain. “So it’s…it’s a…” Her stomach roiled at the thought. No. It couldn’t be. There had to be a mistake.

“It’s a mutation that jumped from Inhumans to humans,” May supplied.

Daisy felt the air as it was sucked right out of her. “But…the story you told, it sounded like-,”

“It was weaponized,” May replied. The color drained from Daisy’s face. Not for the first time in her life, she wished she had never gone down into that damned temple. The tears fell a bit more freely now. “There’s more,” May began. Daisy felt the crushing weight of that suggestion. She gripped against the rail of the hospital bed. What more could there be? “The Inhumans had a vaccine developed for the disease,” May said. That made Daisy perk up right until she saw May’s frown. “It’s been given to all the Inhumans who passed through the missed and took sanctuary in Afterlife.”

Daisy’s brow knitted together in the middle of her forehead. Her mouth hung open as she tried to form a coherent sentence. “Wait so…you’re saying that…that I…”

May nodded. “You’ve been vaccinated against it. Your fever will pass within a day. The wound,” she nodded to Daisy’s arm. “Will heal on its own with minor discomfort…”

Daisy blinked. “So…” She tried not to let her hopes soar at the prospect of being able to watch her daughter grow up. Her hopes had been shredded enough in the past throughout her life. She was always guarded about letting them run wild. “So I’m…I’m not gonna…”

May shook her head. “No,” she said. Daisy saw the underlying sadness in her eyes, one of the few places May couldn’t always hide herself way from others, in a handful of situations.

Daisy’s eyes shifted to Jemma in the bed as the realization dawned on her. “Jem…” she whispered.

“The vaccine doesn’t work on humans,” May replied. “The notated mortality rate for humans-,”

“Doesn’t matter,” Bobbi spoke up. “Because we’re not there yet,” she stated firmly before she examined Jemma’s hands. Was it her eyes or were the carbuncle clusters around Jemma’s hands clearing away?

Daisy’s eyes lingered on Jemma. So that was it, then? She was going to actually watch her wife slowly die? Daisy felt the world spinning around her. Before she knew what was happening, she had begun to break down and moments later she was sobbing into the crook of May’s neck. May pulled her to her feet and brought them further away from Jemma’s bed, holding her up and bracing her weight. May just let Daisy cry.

“May,” Bobbi called after a few minutes. May looked over and Bobbi waved her over.

May left Daisy in a chair, staring blankly at the floor as the weight of her future weighed on her heavily.

“Look at this,” Bobbi picked up one of Jemma’s hands. Most of the sores seemed to have cleared from it. “This is the hand that was covered in Daisy’s spilled blood,” she said. “After the seizure?”

“…Are they healing?” May asked as she looked over Jemma’s hand.

“They look like they’ve at least dissipated?” Bobbi suggested.

“What else have they been giving her? Is it possible any of it could cause them to heal?” May asked.

Bobbi hesitated. She glanced at Daisy and then at Jemma. “Only one way to find out for sure,” She reasoned. Desperate times, right?

May frowned. Took a slow breath. “Take extra samples to the lab. See what happens if they mix. Maybe…”

“Maybe the antibodies _are_ able to tackle the human form,” Bobbi spoke quietly. “Maybe Jiaying just didn’t _want_ it to?” She arched her eyebrows and exchanged a glance with May before she set to work on grabbing more samples from Daisy and Jemma. She had sent one of the other doctors to Fitz’s room to grab samples from him as well before she went off from the isolation area to one of the isolated labs, going through the decontamination process all over again to get there and meet Lincoln inside.

\---

**_2021 – April 29th_ **

Jemma’s eyes cracked open. She lifted her eyelids a bit more and then let out a strained grunt as she scrunched them shut in the light surrounding her in the room. Her hand came up to block her eyes. She heard some sudden shuffling and a moment later the light was stifled by what sounded like curtains being moved into place. She felt weight on the bed as someone sat down next to her right hip and she slowly cracked her eyes again, wincing as she waited for them to adjust to the still somewhat too bright room. The last thing she remembered was Daisy talking to her about not regretting having a family with her before she had succumbed to the pull of unconsciousness in her fevered haze in the dark, closed off isolation room.

Her eyes popped open when she realized the room she was in was too bright to be the isolation room. The quarantine rooms didn’t have windows to the outside world in them. Her eyes widened with panic as they darted around the room. Before she could move to sit up, a gentle hand came to rest on her cheek. Her eyes stalled and focused to find Daisy’s face.

“You have no idea how much I’ve missed your eyes,” Daisy spoke, loud enough to be heard but soft enough not to overpower Jemma’s still sharpening senses. Her lips were turned up into a relieved and reassuring smile. Her hair was tousled from sleep where she had been spread out halfway on the bed and halfway in the uncomfortable medical wing chair. Her right arm was still wrapped up in gauze but the wound had stopped seeping two days ago and was healing nicely, if faster than a normal human’s healing time, with its stitches beneath.

Jemma’s concern carved its way in winding furrows of her brow. “W-what…”

Daisy smiled at her again and ran the pad of her thumb along Jemma’s cheekbone. “You’re okay,” She promised. Jemma moved to try to sit up and Daisy put her other hand on her shoulder and eased her back down. “Ohhhhh no you don’t,” She shook her head and leaned over to kiss Jemma’s forehead quickly. “You’re not moving from this bed until multiple doctors have given the okay to ease into it,” She smirked a little.

Jemma’s mind reeled. She had been on death’s door. She still felt like she might be close to it, though she wasn’t freezing anymore. She also wasn’t wet so the fever must have broken. “How…?” she asked Daisy with confusion laced through her voice. “How long have I been-,”

“Four days since they first got you back to HQ,” Daisy answered. “Three since you were last awake,” She added, giving Jemma’s shoulder an unconscious squeeze as she relayed the information.

Jemma’s eyes opened wider. She tried to sit up again. This time, Daisy let her sit up at least. Her hand came up to her forehead as a dizzy spell hit her and Daisy reached out to steady her for a moment. “Fitz-,”

“He’s okay,” Daisy promised right away. “You both are.”

Jemma exhaled a relieved sigh. She finally had a chance to look down at her arms as her hands rested on Daisy’s biceps. Her hands were still healing but they had returned to their normal color and were mostly covered in flaking skin around her cuticles. The blisters and carbuncle clusters were gone along with the blue and green discolorations. Likewise, all the spots on the rest of her body were in the final stages of healing. They held no pustules or blisters, no welts, no bruises – only the remnants of the stretching and damaging of the top layers of her flesh remained. She knew those were things that would heal on her own in a few more days, as with any remnants of a viral infection if treated properly, once one’s own antibodies had fought it off properly.

“How did…how am I…” Jemma lifted her eyes to Daisy’s and swallowed back against the lump of dryness in her throat. Daisy’s hands roamed, seeking comfort in the fact that Jemma was awake and sitting up, running along her sides, her back and occasionally letting her fingers trace the curves of her face. “How am I here?” Jemma asked in a tone that made her sound so small. Daisy knew she had to feel completely unsettled and anxious. She had been on death’s door in a very literal sense. Just as Daisy had been wondering if the conversation they’d had about Daisy’s original fear of not returning from a mission to Jemma or any children they had would be their last conversation ever, Jemma must have assumed it would be their last as well.

Daisy took her time explaining what happened so that Jemma could keep up since she knew Jemma was still weak and healing. She explained about Lincoln remembering writings from Jiaying’s journal about the virus, about the human mortality rate, about how Daisy had wound up ‘infected’ but also how Lincoln had told the team about the Inhuman vaccine. She told Jemma about the theory that Jiaying had purposefully prevented anyone from creating a vaccine for humans and instead used herd immunity of the Inhumans to keep the disease from spreading to the humans waiting to go through the mist at Afterlife. She told Jemma about how Bobbi noticed the affected Daisy’s spilt blood had affected some of the external symptoms of the infection. “Bobbi and Lincoln worked with an entire team to find a way to stop it,” Daisy said, her smile wavering like the sheen of her slightly welled eyes. Her hand cupped Jemma’s cheek again and Jemma unconsciously leaned her face into the touch.

“I thought I lost you,” Daisy whispered.

Jemma reached out and hooked her arms around Daisy’s neck and shoulders and pulled her in for a hug. Daisy’s arms automatically circled her middle, her hands pressed into Jemma’s back to hold her tight. Jemma leaned her head against the side of Daisy’s.

“Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” Daisy murmured before she turned her head down and kissed the top of her shoulder. Jemma closed her eyes and listened as Daisy inhaled her scent, pressing her nose close to the back crook of her neck, the way she always did. Daisy wished Jemma didn’t smell like a mixture of her normal scent and hospital smell, but she would take it since Jemma was alive and on the mend. She tightened her arms around Jemma.

Jemma adjusted her grip around Daisy. “I’m sorry,” she whispered against Daisy’s ear. Both of them knew it was fruitless to promise to never scare the other like that again. There was no way real way to escape the danger of being in the field short of resigning from the team and seeking employment elsewhere. The team was their family. How could you resign from your family? “I love you,” She murmured and Daisy echoed the words right back to her.

The door to Jemma’s room opened and the two of them reluctantly pulled back from each other and Daisy helped ease Jemma back down to the bed, which was propped into a partially upright seated position.

“Mummy!” Lily screeched from Bobbi’s arms as Bobbi slipped into the room and let the door shut behind her. She adjusted her grip on the little girl as Lily squirmed around wildly, wanting to be set free to run to her parents, both of whom she had been kept from until the proper vaccine could be administered to her and given time to work. But it had been a long time since she had seen Jemma and Lily had a backlog of hugs and kisses to administer.

Jemma’s face immediately brightened. And then concern stretched across it. “Should she be in here when-,”

“Totally fine,” Bobbi cut her off with the reassurance as she crossed to the bed and handed Lily over to Daisy.

Daisy grinned and kissed Lily’s cheek. Lily was still squirming, trying to break free and reaching for Jemma. “Okay, easy there Monkey,” she said, holding off on passing Lily when she was too riled up to keep from hurting Jemma in all her excitement. “Mummy’s still feeling yucky, so we have to be gentle, okay?” She asked as she set Lily’s feet down in her lap and held her be her sides.

Lily stuffed a small handful of her fingers in her mouth and glanced from her mama to her mummy and nodded as Jemma gave her a beaming smile. “Ya huh,” Lily confirmed that she understood and reached out for Jemma again.

Jemma didn’t bother correcting Lily this time. She fought against the welling happy tears in her eyes as she smiled. She had truly believed that she was never going to see, hug, kiss or touch her daughter again. To have her right here and know that in moment she would get to hold onto Lily…Jemma was so relieved to have Daisy and Lily right here with her that she just wanted to cry. She sat up slightly as Daisy kissed Lily’s cheek and then picked her up to pass her over to Jemma.

Lily crawled her way right into Jemma’s lap and threw her little arms around Jemma’s neck, wiggling her away as close against her mummy as she could. Jemma wrapped her arms as tight around Lily as she could and began peppering dozens of kisses along her cheek, her temple, her shoulder and her neck. She took a page from Daisy’s book and buried her nose momentarily into the crook of Lily’s neck at the back and inhaled a deep breath of the familiar scent of their littler girl. The tears were slow as they made their way down Jemma’s cheeks, unstoppable.

“Oh, I’ve missed you so much,” Jemma murmured against Lily’s ear. Daisy watched them with a fond smile. She felt equally emotional about how lucky they were to still be together, all of them safe, if still healing. Daisy had a long stretch there where she thought this wouldn’t be possible. Then she had a long stretch where she thought they were going to lose Jemma and there was no way around it. And now here they were. Jemma’s handed lifted from Lily’s back and came to rest on Daisy’s arm, as if she needed to reassure herself that the two of them were both really there, that she was awake and alive and not imagining this in some kind of fever coma.

Lily babbled about all the things that had happened while Jemma had been on her work trip. Jemma nodded as she held on tight. Daisy sat forward and wrapped them both up in her arms, kissing first the back of Lily’s head and then Jemma’s forehead.

\---

**_2021 – May 20th_ **

Jemma had been, officially, fully recovered for almost three weeks. Her strength had been slowly coming back to her. Daisy had insisted that she work only from home until she felt up to returning to the lab. Jemma felt up to returning over a week ago, but had told Coulson she just wasn’t ready yet because she knew Daisy felt anxious about her returning to the potential dangers. Daisy, in turn, had done most of her work from the library office, too anxious from their brush with death to be apart from the Jemma and Lily for very long stretches of time. Jemma had been trying to gently discuss possibly going to speak with a therapist since the experience had been highly traumatizing for both of them. Daisy was still resistant to the idea, so Jemma tried her best to tread carefully, mostly going with the idea that _she_ wanted to speak with one and so she had begun to set up appointments, some of which, she had requested that Daisy come in with her for, since the therapist had wanted her present to hear her side of things under the guise of helping Jemma (which wasn’t entirely a lie). Daisy jumped on the idea of helping Jemma heal much faster than she ever would have jumped on the idea of getting outside help for herself.

Jemma left the heavy thoughts tucked into the back of her mind for today, though. Today the Johnson-Simmons brood had planned a family trip to the zoo! The weather had turned out lovely and perfectly in their favor, enough so that they were comfortably dressed in jeans and t-shirts, slathered with soaked in sunscreen, wearing sunglasses and, in some cases (like Jemma and Lily’s) wearing baseball caps. Lily was perched on Daisy’s shoulders with her hands wrapped around Daisy’s forehead and Daisy’s hands held onto Lily’s legs to keep her from falling. Every so often, Daisy would reach up to hold Lily’s hands and give a few extra bounces to her steps as if Lily might be riding a horse. Every time she did it, Lily squealed in a delightful outburst of giggles. Jemma reveled in the sound, which was usually followed shortly after but Daisy’s soft chuckles.

“What do we want to see next?” Daisy asked, holding Lily’s legs and tilting her head back to look up at the little girl.

Lily turned her head down to look at Daisy. “Monkeys!!!” She cheered excitedly.

Daisy chuckled. “Why am I not surprised?” She quipped and then made some monkey noises. Lily let out a hysterical peel of giggles and looked at Jemma as if to ask, ‘isn’t mama hilarious!?!’

“Is Mama acting like a silly Monkey?” Jemma asked in response to the silent question.

Lily giggled and shook her head up in down in a handful of exaggerated nods. Right afterward, she attempted to mimic the monkey noises and threw a hand over her head and used the other to scratch at her sides as she continued to mimic her favorite animal.

Daisy snickered up at what she could see of the antics, blissfully unaware at the moment of the fact that Jemma was most definitely snapping photos of them with her phone. Lily looked down at Daisy and Daisy beamed an adoring smile up at the little girl. “I love you, kid,” she practically sung out on the tail ends of a few snickers. Lily gave Daisy a bright grin and leaned down to kiss the spot next to her nose below her sunglasses and Daisy simultaneous smacked her lips and kissed the bulb edge of Lily’s cheek as Lily giggled again.

As Lily sat back up and wrapped her hand around Daisy’s forehead again, Daisy wrapped one arm across Lily’s legs and put a victorious fist in the air. “To the monkeys!” She cheered before she reached up to hold onto Lily’s hands to keep her in place and took off in a slight jog in the direction of the area of the zoo that held the monkeys. Jemma laughed and took a few more photos as she watched them go, disappearing around a corner and leaving Jemma only able for the moment to hear Lily’s shrieks of laughter as they carried on the wind.

By the time Jemma caught up to them, Daisy had stopped them at one of the many vendors throughout the zoo. Lily had gasped when she had seen a stuffed monkey and Daisy had been unable to resist buying it for her after seeing the way the little girl was staring at stuffed animal. As soon as she paid for the monkey, she tugged the tag off of it and put it in her pocket and then lifted it up to Lily, who immediately wrapped her arms around it to hold it in a bear hug and leaned her elbows down on Daisy’s head. Daisy held one of her legs with one hand and reached up to press a hand to Lily’s back to keep her from falling if she leaned back. Lily murmured out a thank you around the Monkey’s cheek as she held it close.

Jemma chuckled when she approached. “Our little monkey has her own little monkey!” She grinned at the two of them.

Daisy snickered. “I think she’s got a big task ahead of her, trying to figure out a name for him!” She said as they continued on their trek.

By the time they left the zoo at almost four in the afternoon after hours of wandering and a lunch stop, Lily was asleep against Daisy’s shoulder, her head on its side facing the outer part of her shoulder, drooling slightly, all of her limbs limp except for the one that was holding her new stuffed monkey tucked between her and Daisy.

“We tired her out big time today,” Daisy chuckled softly as they made their way to the arm. She was holding Lily with one arm resting under her rear while she walked next to Jemma holding onto her wife’s hand.

Jemma chuckled and grinned over at the two of them. “As soon as we wake her up for dinner when we get home, she’s going to be wired for a few more hours, you know,” she pointed out.

Daisy smiled and turned to steal a few quick kisses from Jemma when they reached the back door of their car. “We’ll cross that hyper bridge when we come to it,” she joked. Jemma clicked the button to unlock the doors and then headed around to the driver’s side while Daisy ducked into the backseat to carefully secure Lily in her car seat without waking her, tucking the monkey into her lap as she did. She shut the back door and climbed into the passenger seat. Before she turned around in her seat to sit properly and fasten her own seat belt, she aimed her phone into the backseat at their daughter and snapped a few photos of the adorable site of her snoozing back there with her new friend. Afterward she got settled in the seat and Jemma pulled out of the parking spot and got them on the road again.

When they reached home, Daisy climbed in the backseat and gently shook Lily away, calling out her name in a singsong tone. Lily yawned and squirmed in her seat, rubbing her eyes with a little balled up fist and blinking sleepy eyes at Daisy. Daisy grinned. “Hey sleepy Monkey,” she kissed Lily’s cheek and scooped her up, taking care not to bump either of their heads as she climbed from the car and shut the door behind her. She adjusted her grip on Lily and brought her to rest against her hip, holding one arm under Lily and using her other hand to brace that arm as she walked toward the front door that Jemma was opening. Lily put her head back down on Daisy’s shoulder and hugged the monkey plush closer to herself.

Daisy had the job of keeping Lily awake so that she wouldn’t be wide awake at her normal bedtime. This led to taking Lily out into the backyard to play on the gigantic playset after dinner for a couple of hours while the sun went down. A couple of the neighbor kids came to play as well, which left Daisy supervising the playground set and Jemma lounging in some of the Adirondack chairs settled in the backyard. They normally sat around a fire pit but it wasn’t quite chilly enough for a fire and the sun was only just setting. Lily carted the stuffed monkey with her everywhere she ran that evening.

She tried to bring the monkey into the bath tub with her but Daisy convinced her that the monkey didn’t like taking baths. By the time Lily was in her pajamas and the bathroom was cleaned up from bath time, she was barely holding her eyes open in the rocking chair in Jemma’s lap while Jemma read to her. Daisy watched from the doorway for a moment or two with her usual adoring little smile before she headed in. Jemma kissed the top of Lily’s head and handed her off to Daisy, who jokingly grunted and murmured about carrying Lily _and_ a monkey at once, which elicited a soft giggle from sleepy little Lily.

Daisy settled Lily into bed and she and Jemma sat down on the edge of the small bed on either side of Lily. Daisy leaned over and rested her hand on the opposite side of Lily’s hip. She reached her hand out and brushed Lily’s hair out of her face and kissed her forehead. Jemma slipped one arm around Daisy’s resting on the bed and brought her other hand to rest along Lily’s shoulder and arm. “Did you have fun at the Zoo today?” Jemma asked with a grin.

“Ya huh!” Lily said with a nod and the words got swallowed up with a yawn. She wormed around in her spot on the pillow and hugged her new best friend the stuffed monkey closer.

“Did you think of a name for your new buddy?” Daisy asked as she combed her hand through Lily’s hair again. Lily nodded. “What is it?” Daisy asked.

“Groot!” Lily cheered, morphing the ‘R’ of the name into a ‘W’.

Daisy and Jemma grinned and each chuckled softly. “Groot?” Daisy repeated and Lily nodded again. “But Groot’s a tree!” Daisy smiled.

“Monkeys swing!” Lily grinned broadly at her Mama and Daisy laughed.

“You’ve got me there!” Daisy admitted. She leaned over and peppered Lily’s face and shoulder with kisses, making Lily worm around again as she giggled softly. She yawned again and Jemma gently rubbed along her torso and belly to lull her to sleep. Both Jemma and Daisy leaned over to kiss each of Lily’s cheeks and whisper out their usual ‘I love you’s,’ and ‘goodnight, sweet dreams.’

Jemma and Daisy left the room together, leaving the nightlight by the door on and made a slow trek to the master bedroom, arms wrapped around each other’s waists as they went. They slipped out of their pajamas on the way from the door to the bed as Daisy pulled Jemma in for a crushing kiss. They slipped together between the sheets, every kiss, every touch, every murmured adoration of love a searing reminder of what was almost lost between them until they settled, tucked against each other, swallowed up by the covers around them and settled into restful slumber.

\---

**_2021 – July 6th_ **

Daisy loved visiting Jemma’s family. Aside from really loving Jemma’s family, she loved that they took her in as one of their own. They called and skyped with her when Jemma was busy rather than only talking to Jemma. They messaged her as well as Jemma and so on. Daisy loved the ease of being around the Simmons family - _her_ family. She loved watching Lily and Alastair play. She loved watching Jemma with both of the kids, or watching Jemma and Arthur as they picked on each other. There was a normalcy here when they visited that couldn’t quite exist all the time when they were back in their own home because of the nature of their jobs and lives.

After Lily was born, Jemma and Daisy had very carefully chosen the right time to talk to Jemma’s parents and Arthur and his wife, Alice, about the Inhuman factor of their lives, and about their jobs, at least in greater detail. Jemma’s parents seemed relieved to finally understand a lot more of the secrecy around Jemma’s and Daisy’s jobs. Arthur wasn’t very surprised because Jemma had discussed certain things with him already and he, in turn, had once let Daisy know that he was aware of the kind of powers she had and that it didn’t make a difference to him. They had told the family about Lily’s potential to have a power, but that had been a long time ago, when Lily had only been with them for a short time. It had been placed on the backburner in most of the Simmons’ minds, really, because Daisy, Lily and Jemma were theirs and there was nothing odd about them as far as the family was concerned.

The Johnson-Simmons trio (plus Groot!) were visiting the greater Simmons clan in England for a family vacation as well as to celebrate Alastair’s third birthday on June 30th. They had arranged to stay for just under two weeks and so far, the trip had been yet another blissful reminder of how lucky Daisy and Jemma really were, despite all the things they had survived in their lives.

On this particular afternoon, Jemma, Daisy, Alice and Mrs. Simmons were picnicking in the park with Alastair and Lily. The kids were running around chasing each other and playing with a soccer ball. Lily had entrusted Jemma with Groot for the time being and Jemma made sure to have the stuffed monkey in her lap whenever Lily would cart by looking to check up on her best plush friend. The adults were engaged in conversation about work goings-on, about the impending delivery of Alastair and Arthur’s second child come the fall, and telling stories of hilarious things the kids had done that required scolding while trying not to laugh.

During their conversation, the soccer ball got away from the two young kids and rolled into the nearby tree line of a wooded area of the park. Both kids chased after it with Alastair in the lead since he had longer, faster legs. Lily slowed to a stop as their approached the tree line. At the edge of the trees, peeking out through some shrubbery were two almost glowing eyes. A low growl accompanied the beaded eyes as a shaggy Rottweiler slowly inched forward and the approaching children. Lily glanced back toward the adults. They were rather far away. She looked at her cousin and shifted a few steps back, afraid to approach any further.

Alastair boldly took two strides forward. “It’s just a dog!” he announced as he picked up a long branch from the ground. Lily whimpered when Alastair took a step closer to the dog. Alastair muttered something about being a scaredy cat and Lily whimpered again when he reached the branch out toward the hulking, growling dog.

“…what are they doing?” Alice murmured, lifting her hand to shield the sun from her eyes as she spotted how far away the kids had gotten. Daisy pulled herself to her feet as she squinted.

“Did they lose the football?” Jemma asked, feeling suddenly anxious as she moved to stand up as well.

Daisy took a few steps down the hill they were seated on, not sure anything was wrong, but moving to get a better look as if pulled to go after the kids. They were pretty far away. She paused a step and squinted.

“What’s Alastair poking at?” Jemma asked, a step or two behind Daisy.

“Lily!” Daisy called. “Alastair!” She added, calling calmly for both of them. “Come back up here with us!” She wasn’t sure what caused it, whether it was just because they were farther away than made Daisy comfortable or something else but her feet began to move at a brisk pace down the slight sloping hill.

“Is that...” Jemma squinted as she tried to catch up.

Daisy’s eyes widened, first when she saw the giant hulking dog that Alastair seemed to be poking a stick at, then at the sound of the roaring bark it let out. Foam flew from it jowls as its hackles rose at the intrusion of the children. Daisy took off at a sprint toward the kids. Jemma chased after her, shouting for Lily and Alastair to back away as they went.

Alastair had his tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth as he jabbed the branch closer to the dog. Lily backed up a step of two. She turned toward the sound of her Mama’s voice and hesitated to walk away only because Alastair didn’t seem to hear her moms calling for them.

“We go back…” Lily whimpered, scared of the menacing animal.

“Not yet,” Alastair poked the stick out again, this time the dog let out a terrifying growl as the stick jabbed its side. It snapped at the branch and broke a bit of it off. Alastair dropped the branch. He dove out of the way and ran to the side when the dog lunged at him, leaving only Lily in the dog’s path.

“LILY MOVE!” Daisy screamed, not wanting to throw her with the dog if she used her powers. She was only a handful of yards away. The dog was closer. Lily let out a shrill shriek of fear. Just as the dog was about to collide with her, a bright violet colored sphere enclosed her. The dog’s snout and teeth launched into it, bouncing off of the outer wall with an electrified yelp. Lily and the dog went tumbling down to the ground with the collision.

Lily was in tears, sobbing. Alastair was staring in disbelief at his cousin. The dog shook its head and scrambled to his its feet. Lily screamed in fear again as the dog went lunging for her once more. Daisy, mere feet away now, wide eyed and panicked, threw her hand out and sent the rabid dog flying. Daisy wasn’t into injuring animals, but when they had the potential to seriously injure her kid, she wasn’t above it either. The dog was launched into the brush and against a tree trunk. Daisy kept an eye on its approach as she reached out reflexively for Lily. Unlike the dog, Daisy’s hands slipped right past the violet shield and landed on Lily’s arms.

“Lily!” She pulled the girl up into her arms and turned to make sure her back wasn’t toward the area the dog had been thrown. “Are you okay? Did he bite you?” she asked quickly as she side stepped her way to Alastair to keep him behind her. Jemma caught up to them, having watched Daisy scoop up Lily and swooped in to hoist Alastair right off his feet and into her arms. She backed away immediately, hand on Daisy’s back and she moved back away from the tree line. Lily buried her face into Daisy’s shoulder and wailed away.

“Shhhh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Daisy promised. Her eyes were wide as she the reality of what happened hit her. Lily’s power was triggered by the fear of impending injury. Daisy stayed put and kept watch to see if the dog would approach again. She didn’t want to bring Lily strolling through the park with a magical power swirling about her.

“Jem,” Daisy said quietly. “Take Alastair and head back. Have your mom call the police…or whatever animal control you have here to come get the dog.”

“What about-,” Jemma began but Daisy cut her off with a shake of her head.

“Not while she’s got the shield up,” Daisy said.

Jemma was reluctant to walk away from them but she nodded. “Be safe…” she murmured before she turned and started to run her way back up the hill, where Mrs. Simmons and Alice were making their way down. Jemma met them halfway and passed Alastair off to Alice and gave her mother instructions before she jogged back down the hill.

Daisy rocked Lily in her arms and tried to shush her. “Shhh…Lily…sweetheart…it’s okay, we’re right here,” She kissed the side of Lily’s head and rubbed her back. “Did he bite you?” she asked once she finally got Lily to lift her head from her shoulder. She gently wiped off Lily’s cheeks. Lily shook her head to answer the question but kept crying. Jemma stepped up next to them and reached out to gently rub Lily’s back. Daisy turned slightly and handed Lily over to Jemma, who pulled Lily in close and swayed with her just as Daisy had, all while staring with utter amazement at the violet sphere that surrounded her daughter and, now that she was holding her, part of Jemma’s shoulder.

Daisy stayed at the tree line to keep the dog from getting away or attacking anyone else in the park while they waited for police. Lily calmed down enough for the protective bubble to recede and Jemma carried her back up to their picnic area. She handed Groot over to Lily, who sullenly hugged the monkey while burrowing into Jemma’s chest. Chest. Jemma, Mrs. Simmons and Alice checked over Lily and Alastair for any indication that either had been bitten since it appeared the dog had been rabid. Eventually the proper authorities arrived and the group was able to pack up to head back home.

At home, stern lectures about wandering so far away from the adults and reassurances that they were safe were doled out. Jemma and Daisy carried Lily up into the room they were staying in, in Jemma’s parents’ house, their usual room, Jemma’s old bedroom. They sat down and cuddled her close on the bed as they talked with her about what had happened, struggling to find ways to explain to Lily what her shield was, where it came from and how she should use it to protect herself if she ever needed to. They repeatedly stressed that she could and should ask them anything she wanted to if she was ever confused and that they would always answer. They assured her that they weren’t angry with her, that they were relieved she was safe and that they had shouted for her earlier because they had been scared that she was in danger.

Lily spent the rest of the day and night clinging to either one of her mothers and sullenly leaving her head resting on one of their shoulders, sucking on her thumb or some of her fingers and holding onto Groot while Jemma and Daisy each did their best to console Lily, to try and ensure that she knew that everything that happened with the shield, which they were referring to as her ‘bubble,’ was perfectly normal (at least for Lily). Lily spent that night sleeping tucked between her two moms while they quietly spent hours awake into the night talking over options and plans of action regarding their little mini-shield.

\---

**_2021 – August ??_ **

“Are you _mad_?!” Jemma let out an exasperated sigh.

“ _Shhhh_!” Daisy hushed her with a grimace. “We just finally got her to sleep, Jem,” She let out an exhausted sigh.

“I’m not the one who let her nap for three hours this afternoon,” Jemma smirked and placed her hands on her hips as she looked across the bed at Daisy, who was still pulling covers back on her side of the bed.

Daisy simultaneously wanted to throw off a snarky comment back at Jemma and also wanted to crawl across the bed and kiss that cocky ‘I’m a genius, duh,’ smirk right off of Jemma’s mouth. She sighed. “It was unintentional! I fell asleep too – it was a harrowing day,” She insisted.

“Indeed – speaking of,” Jemma went back to pulling the covers back on her side of the bed. She went on as both women began to crawl in on their respective sides. “I’m sure we’re all over the neighborhood rumor mill now.”

Daisy frowned. “Are you really going to fault me for making sure we didn’t get sued by the neighbors for their kid falling out of our kid’s backyard playset and breaking something?”

“Of _course_ not,” Jemma insisted as they settled in and leaned back against the pillows and headboard. She shrugged. “I merely wish it could have been avoided without the need for superpowers…”

“Jemmaaaaa,” Daisy sighed in frustration and leaned her head back. She clenched her eyes a moment and let out another slow exhale. “I didn’t do it on purpose,” she looked over at her wife. “It was reactionary. We were too far away.”

“I know, darling,” Jemma turned to look at Daisy and sighed. “I’m merely saying I wish it could have gone differently.”

Daisy frowned again. “Well, I can’t really change how it happened…” she murmured as she fiddled with a fraying seam on the covers in her lap.

“At least there were no injuries,” Jemma reached out to cover her hand over Daisy’s to still it and give it a squeeze. She leaned over and kissed Dais’s temple.

“Yeah…” Daisy nodded. “And who cares, anyway, if they know? Some of them probably knew anyway from those government press conferences the last few years,” She added. “So what’s it matter?”

“It doesn’t matter that they _know_ , Daisy,” Jemma said softly. “It’s what they do with the knowledge. We’re adults. We can handle it if they get nervous about us being here. But what if they treat Lily differently?”

Daisy’s shoulders slumped and she frowned once more. “They’d have no reason to, it was my powers that were used, not hers. They don’t know about hers.”

Jemma scooted closer and wrapped her arm around Daisy’s shoulders and pulled her close. Daisy reflexively leaned into embrace and settled her head down on Jemma’s shoulder. “Adults have a very high capacity for making something out of nothing because of some silly fear – look at how I reacted to San Juan. I pushed you away without intending to all because I was afraid of losing you…like Trip…” She combed her fingers through Daisy’s hair and kissed the top of her head.

Daisy was silent for a long few moments. “I’m sorry if I’ve ruined our standing in the neighborhood.”

Jemma kissed the top of her head again and wrapped both arms around her. “You’ve done nothing of the sort,” she said. “You stopped a little boy from breaking his neck in an accidental fall. It was a perfectly noble necessity in the moment and I love that your first instinct is always to protect people – that’s something that’s never changed about you since I’ve known you.” She kissed the top of Daisy’s head once more. “I love everything about you, Daisy, even the insufferable little habits that drive me mad,” she teased as she squeezed her arms tighter around Daisy for a moment. Jemma grinned at the small chuckle that earned her. “I’m sorry that I overthink things and let my wild mind err on the side of paranoia.”

Daisy turned her head down and kissed the top of Jemma’s shoulder. “You know I would never let anyone mistreat Lily because of the powers, right? Or you, for being guilty by association with us,” she added.

Jemma leaned back to let her eyes lock with Daisy’s when she lifted her head. She lifted her fingers and traced along Daisy’s cheek. “Of course, Love,” she smiled. “There’s never been a question in my mind that you’ll always take care of us,” she assured before she ducked her head to claim Daisy’s lips in a long, sweet kiss.


	19. Two Minutes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forewarnings: Shit, where do I even start.....???  
>  **Panyan Enhanced-Fujita Adrenaline Scale:** I'm bad at assigning this numbers....um.....11, because it's 1 higher than 10?  
>  **Agnes Enhanced Fluffiness Scale:** ummmmmm...8??  
>  There's a lengthy mix of lots of things in this one, it's hard to say! 
> 
> Thank you as always for the kudos, comments, love, feels, thoughts and opinions!! You guys are awesome!  
> Next chapter is the last flashback chapter and then the FINAL chapter completely, so if there's anything you want or need to know, now's the time to ask so I can either incorporate or answer!!  
> <3 <3 :o)
> 
> \-------------------------------

**June 27th 2022**

Three days after having returned home, Jemma, Daisy and Lily were due to visit a psychologist. Despite having been convinced over multiple months by Jemma in the past to have her head shrunk after a traumatic mission-related experience not so long ago, and despite having worked with them in the past before that (or possibly _because_ of her experiences with some of them when she was much, much younger), Daisy felt a bit anxious about the appointment. Her want to do what was best for Lily had superseded her own anxiety and Jemma had only needed to suggest it once before Daisy agreed that it was the best thing for them to do after what had happened and that it wasn’t something they should delay. The days leading up to the appointment were fairly docile. The three of them had spent most of the time in various forms of pajamas, catching up on sleep and healing from the wounds they had each received. There had been some nightmares – none of them had escaped those completely. Last night they had tried to convince Lily that she would be safe sleeping alone in her own room. They had stayed with her until almost an hour after she was asleep before they had quietly retreated to the master bedroom. Less than two hours later, Lily had had a nightmare and Jemma had carried her back to their room for the rest of the night.

That had solidified in Daisy’s mind that this doctor appointment was a good idea, and maybe hadn’t come soon enough, even. The Johnson-Simmons clan had had no shortage of visits from various team members to check on them and bring them copious amounts of food. Daisy thought it funny that this was a situation for casseroles and fruit bowls. She loved them for it though. The other thing that solidified for Daisy that this psych visit was important, was the fact that they were at twenty minutes and counting of convincing Lily that driving in the car was safe and she would be alright. For the first eighteen minutes, Lily had cried any time either of her moms carried her to the open back door of their car and buried her face into their shoulder. Jemma had finally been the one to suck up the last bit of courage, put on a brave face and climbed into the backseat to help settle Lily into her car seat. Lily was still crying after Jemma hooked her into the seat in the middle spot and sat down in the seat next to her.

“Shhhhh…sweetheart, it’s okay,” Jemma kept an arm wrapped around the top of the car seat and her other reached out to wipe Lily’s cheeks off with the cuff of her sleeve. “I’m right here. No one’s going to hurt you, I promise, Love,” She fought to keep from not only frowning at upsetting her daughter so much but to keep her eyes from spilling over themselves. Daisy had almost lost that battle five times from the door to the car, even. She passed Groot and Lily’s blanket in through the door. Jemma draped the blanket over Lily’s lap and handed Groot over to her as she wailed.

Jemma pulled the door next to her shut as Daisy climbed into the driver’s seat. “We’re going for a short ride, Monkey, so we can go see the doctor. That’s all. Me, Mummy and Groot will be with you the whole time-,”

“Noooooooo Mama noooo!!” Lily belted the words out between her whimpers. Her casted arm knocked into Jemma’s cheek as she tried to reach for Jemma to be pulled free from the seat. “M-Monsters!” She stammered and cried harder, trying her best to break free.

Daisy turned around in the seat and reached out to gently pat her hand along Lily’s closest leg to let her know she was there too. “There are no monsters here, Monkey. We checked _three_ whole times, just to make sure it was safe for us,” she forced a small smile.

Lily shook her head back and forth repeatedly. “Nooo!!” She looked helplessly back and forth between her moms and whimpered. “Nooo! No monsters!!” she dropped her face into the back of Groot’s stuffed head and sobbed.

Jemma felt like someone had ripped her heart right out of her chest and thrown it into a meat grinder. “Heyyy, hey hey,” She softly sung out to Lily. She put her hand on Lily’s cheek and kissed the top of her head. “Lily…hey…c’mon, honey, look at me, please?” she used her finger to gently prod at Lily’s chin to get her to look up at her. “I promise, Lily, the monsters are all gone. They’re only in our dreams now and the doctor we’re going to see, she’s going to help us with that.” She kissed the tip of Lily’s nose and pressed their foreheads together as Lily sniffled and whimpered again. “You know me and mama, we would never let anything happen to you, yeah?” Daisy nodded behind her and Lily nodded against Jemma’s forehead. Jemma moved and kissed the side of Lily’s head.

“That’s right,” Daisy confirmed with a nod. “No monsters left to hide, we even checked to make sure. We’re always going to keep you safe, darling,” she squeezed Lily’s knee gently as she spoke with watery eyes. Lily sniffled again and Jemma reached out to gently wipe at her tears, this time with the corners of her baby blanket.

“I know it’s scary,” Daisy said. “I’m scared too after our last car ride,” she gave Lily’s knee a gentle squeeze again. “We’ll only be on this one for the length of three songs,” She said as Lily sniffled and whimpered again. “So that means we’ve got three songs to sing along to so loud that Mummy thinks we’re little wolves howling – think you can do that with me? For three songs?” She lifted her hand from Lily’s knee and held three fingers on one of her hands up and wiggled them, forcing out a reassuring smile that was mixed with a challenging eyebrow arch.

Lily seemed to consider this as she sniffled again. Jemma reached out to grab the corner of her baby blanket and gently dried the tears off of Lily’s red cheeks. She tucked the blanket corner back around Lily and held her hand up for Lily. 

“C’mon, Monkey…partners in howling singalong crime?” She wiggled her eyebrows and gave Lily a wink as the corner of her mouth forced up into a smirk.

Jemma was shaking her head and pretending to cross her fingers as she turned her eyes to the roof of the car and made a show of silently begging the heavens to help her avoid the fate of listening to Daisy and Lily sing along off key to songs. 

“What d’ya say, Monkey?” Daisy arched her eyebrows higher as she grinned. 

Lily was still reluctant. She sniffled again and then, finally, nodded and reached out to clamp her hand around Jemma’s hand to hold on tight. Daisy made a show of letting out a cheer in the front seat. Jemma made a show of having a sigh, but still lifted Lily’s hand to her lips and kissed the back of it before she leaned in and peppered her cheek, temple and the crook of her neck with kisses. 

Daisy and Jemma buckled their belts and Daisy brought the car to life, which caused Lily to whimper. “Okay, Monkey – I’ve got just the song for us to start with, ready?” Daisy wiggled her eyebrows as she looked at them in the rearview. She waited, leaving the car idling rather than putting it into gear just yet. Instead, she grabbed her phone and connected it to the radio through the bluetooth. She quickly sifted through some songs and then pulled up Warren Zevon’s _Werewolves of London_. As soon as it started playing, Lily let out a short giggle as she recognized it.

Daisy grinned with relief as Lily let out a premature, “Ahhh-woooooooooo!’ before the lyrics even started.

“How I wound up with a couple of howling wolves in my family, I’ll never know!” Jemma exclaimed with put-on exasperation, though she was smiling as Daisy put the car into gear. Lily’s grip on Jemma’s hand clenched and her face contorted into a grimace. The whimper the little girl let out was very soft, but Jemma heard it. She kissed the top of Lily’s head and reached out with her other hand to tap the beat out across Lily’s knees with her fingers. Daisy hit the button on the steering wheel to control the volume and cranked it up. She started to sing along and Lily attempted to remember the words for the lyrics but mostly paid attention to her Mummy as Jemma danced in her seat more than usual and bobbed along in an exaggerated manner to keep Lily more distracted than normal. When the chorus hit, they were howling away with their _“Ahhhhhh-woooooooo, werewolves of London!”_ howls.

Just as the third song was ending, Daisy was turning into the parking lot for the doctor’s office – a specialist that worked specifically with SHIELD and their recruits because of the nature of their potential traumas. Daisy and Jemma had been here before, but never with Lily. The moment Daisy pulled Lily free from the car seat, Lily was wrapped around Daisy, holding onto her shoulders and wrapping her legs around her waist. Daisy carried Lily, Groot and Lily’s baby blanket as Jemma walked beside them, gently running her hand in circles along Lily’s back. While the contact and quiet reassurances they murmured as they spoke with her did keep Lily from crying again, she was still leaning heavily against Daisy’s shoulder, with her head down, a pitiful pout on her face and her thumb stuffed solidly in her mouth with her other hand gripped onto the back of Daisy’s shoulder and neck by part of the back of her coat collar and a random tuft of hair she had captured. From the look that kept contorting across Jemma’s face whenever she leaned over to look at Lily to speak to her, Daisy was selfishly thankful that she couldn’t see whatever miserable and upset expressions their daughter must have been making.

Thankfully, Jemma had insisted that they arrive early and because of it, the fight to get Lily into the car and keep her calm while they drove meant they were still almost twenty minutes early. So the family settled into a set of waiting room chairs without armrests. Jemma sat flush against Daisy’s side as Daisy sat down and turned Lily to settle the little girl sideways in her lap, turned to face Jemma. Lily settled the side of her head back down against Daisy’s chest and kept her thumb in her mouth. Her free arm was now wrapped tightly around Groot the monkey and her legs spilled past Daisy’s lap and a little over into Jemma’s. Jemma grabbed one of the children’s activity books from the small table next to her and flipped through until she found one of the hidden object pages as Daisy adjusted Lily’s baby blanket around her in hopes of comforting her a little more. Daisy’s arms were loosely wrapped around Lily and her hands folded together against the side of Lily’s hip. She swayed from side to side slightly to try and help lull Lily into a normal comfort zone as Jemma attempted to play the hidden object game with Lily since she normally liked looking through those at the pediatrician’s office whenever she had an appointment there.

\--

The wait to go into the doctor’s office had been agonizingly long in Daisy’s opinion, which she had kept to herself in the waiting room other than one point when she had started nervously bouncing her knee and Jemma had had to settle a hand on it to calm her jitters down. It was nothing compared to the hour long session, during which Daisy had had to bite her tongue multiple times to keep from jumping into ‘defensive Mama’ mode. A few times she had possibly snapped a few overly snarky comments at the doctor and, in turn, had received a couple of wide-eyed pointed glares from her wife to warn her to behave. Currently, Lily had been on a play mat on the floor in the office, lying on her stomach, coloring on some blank pages with some crayons the doctor had given her and with Groot and her blanket stationed on either side of her within arm’s reach. Daisy smiled when she looked over to check on her and spotted her daughter with a serious expression etched across her face – the same one Jemma always had when working in the lab – all but her tongue, which was poked out the right corner of her mouth - the way Daisy’s did when she was lost in a sea of code and working away.

“As far as posttraumatic stress goes, I think you both know this is a fairly textbook case, given the circumstances surrounding its causation,” The doctor was saying.

His words brought Daisy’s attention from Lily back to the doctor. She frowned and glanced at Jemma in the cushy chair next to her. This time, it was Jemma whose brow was creased into worry wrinkles and was fidgeting. Jemma’s hands absently played with the corners of her cuticles and she shifted in her seat rather than outright bouncing her knees like Daisy did. Daisy reached over and ran her fingers from the inside of Jemma’s forearm down to her hand to entwine their fingers together. She gave Jemma’s hand a small reassuring squeeze. 

Jemma chewed nervously against the bottom corner of her lip for a beat and then took a breath and spoke. “I realize that probability of our daughter suffering from negative effects in the aftermath of a very traumatic and violent nature of the experience. Daisy and I are not immune to those side effects ourselves but, as adults we are capable of both expressing our anxieties as well as picking up on when our counterpart is holding back when it comes to having those particular emotional side effects triggered by something. Obviously as her parents, we can tell when our daughter’s distressed, but I am entirely aware of the fact that we won’t be able to easily discover every little trigger that could set her off and even if we _can_ discern them like with the car ride this morning, we are scarcely equipped at present to handle treating her for the clinical symptoms of this situation-,”

Even though Daisy knew the doctor was following Jemma’s complicated ramble, she squeezed Jemma’s hand gently and cut her off to say, “I think…what my wife’s trying to ask is…are there any specific things you can tell us to do, whatever kind of shrink-y tools we should use, when an episode like with the car happens so that we can both calm Lily down and reassure her that we’re there and that she’s safe?” She arched her eyebrows and offered a slight sheepish half smile.

Jemma’s cheeks flushed but she sent Daisy a quick, appreciative look since Daisy had curtailed her nervous rambling. “Yes,” she nodded. “That,” she squeezed Daisy’s hand with her own and cupped it with her other hand to keep Daisy from letting go, though she didn’t think Daisy would have chosen to let go just then.

The doctor gazed upon them with sympathy from behind the thick rims of his glasses. “The short answer is, yes,” the doctor informed them. “Your daughter’s condition is treatable and considering that the three of you are still healing from our wounds, it’s remarkable you’ve managed to come in so quickly following the incident. I usually see patients much later after they’ve been through a traumatic experience. It’s much harder to undo a habit once it’s been formed than to stop one before it starts. You made the right decision not to hesitant, given the circumstances,” The doctor did his best to soothe over their fears without sugarcoating it too much.

“We’re no strangers to this kind of…heavy situation,” Daisy said when Jemma squeezed her hand anxiously.

“Indeed you are not. The life of an agent, though, yes?” The doctor expelled a soft sigh. “I have a voluminous stack of information to send you home with so you’ll be able to read all about possible side effects and symptoms of PTSD in children specifically as it manifests a bit differently. It will have a list of some of the techniques for helping her cope and express what she needs to express as a result of the trauma that I’ll go over with you before you leave as well.”

“Homework,” Daisy nodded slowly. “Wasn’t expecting that.” She pressed her lips into a smirk that Jemma’s gaze pierced right through to see the concern beneath the surface, that Daisy might not be able to read and follow whatever manual the doctor decided to give them with the full comprehension that Jemma would. Jemma squeezed Daisy’s hand in silent assurance that they were in this together with their daughter.

“I want to remind you that healing from this traumatic event is a process,” Doctor Rhoads went on. “It’s not something that can be instantly solved overnight. It’s going to be a long road for the lot of you,” He said. “But we’ll get you through it,” He added afterward with an optimistic smile.

\---

**June 29th 2022**

Two days after their first visit with Doctor Rhoads, the psychologist they had brought Lily to, Daisy had told Jemma that she had to go into HQ to meet with Coulson (not a lie). Lily was extremely distraught, as she had been almost five days earlier when Daisy had gone in for a few hours, to see her go so getting out of the house had taken some time, lots of tears, lots of hugs and kisses, and promises of ice cream and play time as soon as she returned home – which would be in just a few hours by the time Lily was waking up from her nap. Jemma was reluctant to let Daisy go, but she held back on saying so since she could see the pain in her wife’s eyes at Lily’s emotional outbursts. Jemma had settled for telling her to be safe and squeezing her extra tight in the one armed hug she gave Daisy since she was holding onto Lily. Daisy had kissed her and promised to call her if anything changed – whether it meant she would be earlier or later than she originally planned.

She had felt immense guilt as she had pulled out of the driveway, giving Jemma and Lily a wave, a smile and a blown kiss as she went. It was true that she had to meet with Coulson, but that could have been done over video call. Daisy had told Jemma she thought it sounded more like a face-to-face meeting rather than a vid chat. That hadn’t been a total lie either but in all honesty, she needed to go to HQ so she could talk to Fitz. He had emailed her earlier that morning to tell her that he had finished analyzing the injector that she had given him and that he needed to speak to her whenever she could get free. The wording in the email had felt ominous. The closer she came to the garage entrance for HQ, the heavier the pitted knot of nerves felt as it weighed her gut down.

Daisy had a lot on her mind. Thoughts were rolling around her brain as she parked the car and climbed out, walking for the stairwell door that would lead down one level and bring her to the elevators. She felt stiff and robotic as she swiped her key card, let the scanner read over her eye and then her fingerprint. How long would it take to get their little happy-go-lucky ball of energy Lily back? Would they ever get her back the same? Did Jemma suspect that Daisy was up to something that she didn’t want to tell her about? Had Coulson tipped Jemma off without telling Daisy? Daisy was pretty sure Jemma would have taken her head off if Coulson told her about the potential truth Ward had spouted about the injector pens rather than Daisy telling her, so she supposed that last one was just her guilt manifesting as anxiety.

At the elevator, Daisy drew the lock design quickly on the touchpad, ran her fingerprint and entered the elevator car when the doors slid open. The elevator doors sealed shut behind her and Daisy spoke her name and code set for verbal identification and then rattled off the level for the lab. Her mind wandered to the fight at the hospital, to the visceral feeling of Ward’s weight on top of her, to the feel of his hand constricting just enough around her neck to keep her from getting enough air, to the gravel draw of his words as he touched her, as he taunted her about being stronger than her and about Carter. _”When you see your song, thank him for the generous gift of power he gave me_.”

Daisy felt lightheaded. She leaned over and rested her weight on her hands just above her knees and tried to inhale a few deep breaths. Her breaths wheezed their way in, shallow and stilted. _”I know you were wondering where this strength came from,”_ she heard Ward’s voice as it rumbled as if he were next to her whispering in her ear, haunting her, rather than just speaking from the dark memory in the back of her mind. _”Wanted to make sure you knew that the last living remnants of your song live on…inside me_. Beads of sweat pricked their way free of her pores across her forehead. They slipped down her neck and some started to dampen the hairline at the back of her head. Daisy shuddered as the elevator slowed.

“Panic attack,” Daisy mumbled to herself. “It’s…it’s just a panic attack,” she murmured to herself as she forced air into her lungs with a long deep breath. The sudden stalling motion of the elevator turned Daisy’s stomach and it roiled against her. She was swallowing back against the rising bile in the back of her throat when the elevator doors chimed open. Daisy stopped across the threshold and got another step before the world started spinning. Daisy threw her hand out to the wall as she staggered against it. _”The only thing I’m going to enjoy more than killing you…”_ Ward’s voice in her mind’s ear snaked its way in and clamped down around Daisy’s heart, caging her in a vice grip that chilled her to her core and cut off her attempts to breathe calmly. _”Is leaving Simmons alive to watch me break your daughter’s spirit…”_. Daisy shuddered as she remembered the way Ward snickered at his own menacing threat.

“Daisy?” Bobbi’s voice filtered through the haze that had quickly surrounded Daisy. It sounded far away, but Bobbi had just been rounding the corner to head to the elevators and has spotted Daisy as she had burst from the elevator. “Are you-,”

Daisy looked up. She opened her mouth to speak and then gripped her stomach and lurched over, bending in half. She barely managed to hold herself up as her abs seized and she retched on the floor. Bobbi’s eyes shot open wide and she immediately took off in a sprint up the hall toward Daisy. Daisy’s muscles slacked as she finished retching and she was crumpling toward the floor just as Bobbi reached her side and swooped in, slipping a strong arm around her waist and pulling one of Daisy’s around her shoulders. She hoisted Daisy up against her side as Daisy coughed and hiccupped and inhaled another ragged breath.

“What happened?” Bobbi asked with alarm.

Daisy shoved the back of her hand against her mouth as her stomach rolled over again and let out a gurgle of discomfort. She barely forced the whisper of, “Panic attack,” out as Bobbi practically dragged her, mostly off her feet, through the halls and toward the lab since it was the closest place that had a trashcan for more puke and somewhere to sit Daisy down.

“What?” Bobbi asked as she turned them into the lab with a sudden clashing as her hip knocked some things off a workspace and to the floor with a loud clattering. Fitz and Lincoln were in the lab working. Both jumped and turned in time to see Bobbi drop Daisy into a desk chair. Bobbi and Daisy reached for the closest wastebasket at the same time and barely managed to get it to Daisy’s mouth as she lurched forward again. She hadn’t managed to quite hear what Daisy had said before but at the moment all Bobbi did was gently pat and stroke Daisy’s back while keeping her hair pushed back and out of her face as she retched again.

Fitz set down the items he was working on and rushed over toward them. “What happened?!” He asked in alarm.

“I’m not sure – I was heading out to grab our lunch order and she was doubled over by the elevators gasping and puking!” Bobbi replied. “On our way in here, I think she was saying she was having a-,”

“Panic attack?” Lincoln guessed as he made his way over, grabbing a pair of gloves to pull on his hands.

“Maybe?” Bobbi ran her hands over Daisy’s back in what she could only hope was a calming random pattern.

“Daisy,” Lincoln waited until she finished puking to pull the wastebasket away. He reached for her shoulders and gently pushed her back. Daisy slumped back in the seat, swallowing back the sour taste in her mouth and grimacing as her muscles refused to work. “Everything’s going to be alright,” He assured as she reached for her wrist to take her pulse. “Can you tell me what triggered it?”

Daisy blinked up at the ceiling. Bobbi leaned closer and brushed her hair out of Daisy’s face, gentle and calm but Daisy could see the distress in Bobbi’s eyes. Daisy wanted to tell Bobbi that it was okay. She didn’t want Bobbi to worry about anything but Hunter at the moment since he was still working his way through learning his powers. Daisy didn’t want to burden them more than they needed to be. She closed her eyes, having trouble taking long, slow deep breaths rather than panting out shallow inhales and exhales. “M’okay,” She murmured just barely audible enough for any of them to hear. She repeated it every few gasps.

“Sure you are,” Fitz frowned.

“Did something happen in the elevator, Daisy?” Lincoln asked again.

“Ward,” Daisy gasped.

Bobbi, Fitz and Lincoln, nearly in unison, snapped their heads toward the door. Bobbi jumped to her feet, ready to yank her batons from their holster beneath her jacket and make a run for the hallway. Had some of them witnessed Ward die? Sure, but the bastard came back before, so. Daisy’s hand clasped around Bobbi’s wrist and stopped her.

“You saw Ward?” Lincoln asked.

“Where?” Fitz almost squeaked as his eyes shifted to the doorway again.

Daisy shook her head. “H-Heard,” she rasped.

Bobbi was standing stock still, staring at the door, expecting to see Ward until she heard that word slip from Daisy’s lips. She understood instantly in that moment what had triggered this reaction from Daisy. She pulled Daisy’s grasp off of her arm and ushered Fitz and Lincoln out of her way. Turning the chair gently, she reached out and put a hand on either side of Daisy’s face. “Daisy,” she spoke Daisy’s name in a tone that, if Daisy had to describe it, she would have said it was maternal. It was calm and soothing but very firm. It reminded Daisy of May. Daisy was trembling; Bobbi could feel the tremors as they began to tingle through her arms from touching Daisy’s face. Daisy’s pupils were blown wide with fear. Bobbi crouched down to be eye level with Daisy and held her face still to keep their eyes locked. “He’s gone, Daisy,” Bobbi’s tone was gentler than her initial demand, but still focused and calm. “He can only hurt you now if you let it control your mind…” she said, thinking back to the nightmares and the PTSD she had suffered through after the incident with Ward and Kara when they had captured her, tortured her and tried to make her witness Hunter’s death.

Fitz elbowed Lincoln, who was gaping at the two of them and nodded to the other side of the lab. Lincoln reluctantly let Fitz lead him away from the girls to give them a minimal amount of privacy. Fitz kept glancing toward the doorway…just in case Ward really did appear. The fear of the remote possibility would never leave him, he knew that for sure.

Bobbi gently stroked her thumbs along Daisy’s cheeks. “Don’t let him terrorize you from the grave,” she set her jaw a moment as her own eyes welled. “He doesn’t have that power. Don’t give it to him. He lost. Don’t let your mind make you think he won.” She said sternly. “Simmons and Lily, they need you. If you can’t do it for yourself, you do it for them.” She said.

\---

An hour later, Daisy had been resting on a table in the medical wing. Bobbi had helped her there once she had managed to stop sweating and to catch her breath. She was finally breathing normally and, thankfully, past the point of nausea but she was still feeling rattled. She had regained control of the slight tremors that had shaken her and, to a tiny extent, Bobbi when Bobbi had grabbed onto her to talk her down. Bobbi had sat by her side, holding her hand and gently stroking her forearm after she had placed a cold rag over Daisy’s eyes.

Finally, Daisy moved to sit up. She caught the rag as it fell from her eyes. Bobbi squeezed her hand gently and Daisy looked over at her. “How’re you feeling?” Bobbi asked. The concern was still at the forefront of her eyes, Daisy could see it clearly.

“I’m sorry,” She murmured as she glanced down at her lap, embarrassed that she hadn’t been able to control what had happened to her even though she knew exactly what had been happening.

Bobbi shook her head and gripped Daisy’s hand tighter. “I’m just glad I caught you before you took a nosedive into your own vomit,” She smirked and wrinkled her nose up as she moved to stand without letting go of Daisy’s hand.

Daisy grimaced. “Thank you,” she said with just the ghost of a small smile.

Bobbi smiled a bit more and let go of Daisy’s hand but only so that she could pull Daisy into a hug. “It takes a lot of work,” she said as she gave Daisy a squeeze. “But you’ll push his voice out of your head eventually,” she assured. Letting go she put her hands on Daisy’s shoulders and ducked her eyes to catch Daisy’s. “Promise you’ll come find me or call me or text, whatever, if you feel it start to happen again? I mean it – any time, just…okay?”

Daisy felt reluctant but she nodded. “Promise,” she said before she dropped her eyes bashfully again. “You, uh…you won’t, ah…won’t tell Jem about this, will you?”

Bobbi let out a soft chuckle and then sighed. “I haven’t and I won’t if you don’t want me to, but…” Daisy arched her eyebrows slightly and Bobbi gave Daisy’s shoulders a light squeeze. “Fitz and Lincoln were there when I dragged you into the lab right before your puked the second time, so…I don’t know if he’s already told her.”

Daisy cringed and sighed. She glanced at her watch. “Shit!” she moved to push her feet to the floor. Bobbi steadied her when she wobbled. “I need to talk to Fitz so I can go home,” she frowned.

“Easy, tiger, he’s not going anywhere,” Bobbi smirked.

Daisy frowned and looked at her shoes. She cleared her throat and changed the subject quickly. “How’s Hunter doing?” She asked.

Bobbi quirked up her right eyebrow up but let it drop. She inhaled and then let out a long breath. “He’s getting there,” she said. “Little by little.” She offered Daisy a smile. “I can at least touch him without being burnt to blisters now.” And that had certainly been a relief.

“I’ll be able to start coming back in this week, to help get him there a little faster, hopefully,” Daisy promised.

Bobbi smiled and gave one of Daisy’s shoulders a grateful squeeze. “Don’t worry about him. We’ve weather worse than a few hiccups,” she assured. “You and the fam…you guys do what you need to do before you come back.” She smiled and nodded toward the door. “C’mon, let’s get you to Fitz so you can talk shop and then we can send you home.” She looped an arm around Daisy’s shoulders – just in case – and then led the way out.

\---

“So, you’re saying he wasn’t lying...” Daisy said slowly as she stared down at the injector pen in her in hands. It had been emptied and partially dismantled by Fitz while he was working on the analysis for Daisy.

“Sort of,” Fitz answered. Daisy frowned and looked across the lab table at him, brow furrowed. “The serum inside, it didn’t hold Carter’s…erm…” Fitz cleared his throat anxiously as he tried to figure out how to say what he needed to say to Daisy in a way that wasn’t incredibly harsh.

Bobbi finally entered the lab after having excused herself to give Fitz and Daisy privacy. After two days of trying to analyze the serum, Fitz had caved and asked Bobbi for help since he couldn’t ask Jemma. He had sworn Bobbi to secrecy and she had been fine with that but it was clear from her attempts at eavesdropping that Fitz was struggling. “Carter’s blood itself wasn’t in the serum,” She said. “But his DNA was.”

Daisy jumped, startled by the intrusion. She immediately tried to hide the injector pen as if she had been caught doing something she shouldn’t. It was reflex, really.

“It’s okay,” Bobbi assured. “I was only brought in because Fitz didn’t have Jemma to help him with the biochem end of things when he got stuck,” she explained. “My lips are sealed until you say otherwise,” Bobbi promised her.

Daisy shifted on her feet and looked down at the object in her hand. Her mind was still reeling from her panic attack earlier. She had hoped, truly hoped, that Fitz was going to tell her Ward was full of shit and had just been messing with her. This news – this confirmation – provided only more questions. Where and when had Ward managed to get his hands on Carter’s DNA? Had it been back on that January day? Before Daisy had gotten to Jemma, before Jemma and her swollen belly had been thrown from the stage in the convention center? Had it been recovered somehow after Carter’s burial? What had gone into the production of this drug? Were other people utilize her son’s DNA to become super soldier monstrosities? Where were the labs that did this? Were they still operational? Did they still have her son’s DNA circulating through them or had there been a finite amount to use?

Bobbi stepped next to Daisy and put her hand on Daisy’s arm, gently. Daisy frowned. She felt the well of tears flood her eyes as she thought about the idea of Carter’s legacy being that of destruction and Frankenstein-esque science experiments. Daisy refused to let the tears spill over, out of stubbornness, even as she thought of how it would kill Jemma to know their son had been used to create such…Daisy shook her head and clenched her jaw.

“I need to…uh…” Daisy cleared her throat.

“Tells us where you want us to start,” Bobbi said to her, making it clear they were ready to do whatever she needed to help her figure out all the answers to all the questions that Daisy needed it.

\---

“You’re sure this is the way you want to handle it?” Coulson asked after Daisy had requested a private conversation with him and May.

Daisy turned her eyes down toward her feet for a moment. “I don’t like withholding it from her, no,” She shook her head and lifted her eyes, shifting them between Coulson and May. “But I…” She paused and shook her head slightly. “I can’t tell her until we know more.”

Coulson and May exchanged a glance. Coulson seemed hesitant to agree to keeping details on this particular mission and situation from Jemma. May considered it for a moment more and then nodded.

“We’re here for whatever you need,” May said when she spoke. “When you’re ready, we’ll tell her with you.”

Daisy hesitated. She pressed her lips into a thin line and small, grateful smile. “Thanks,” she said quietly. She glanced at her watch and sighed. “And now I have to get home before Lily wakes from her nap…”

“I’ll walk out with you,” May offered. Daisy nodded and let May accompany her out to the garage, parting with a long hug as May offered a few reassurances that the team – or at least May, Coulson, Bobbi and Fitz, would help her get it figured out.

Daisy climbed into her car after thanking May and sent Jemma a text, as promised, to let her know that she was on her way home. Daisy let her thoughts run a bit wild while she drove home. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to let her mind race too much at home because it would tip Jemma off and also because she would have Lily to contend with after her nap. So this ride was her free time to freak out, to think about questions she would need to find answers to, to think about how she would obtain those answers. When she finally pulled into the driveway, Daisy was exhausted. She gave herself a couple of moments after turning the car off to regroup, to bring her mind back to the present and focus only on her family and being with them.

Daisy climbed from the car and shut the door. She hit the button to lock the doors and then followed the walkway that took her up the stairs of the porch and to the front door. With a deep breath to steady herself, Daisy let herself into the house quietly. She shut the door behind her before Elvis could try to escape and then scanned her thumb on the biometric scanner of the house alarm to keep it from going off since she didn’t know if Jemma and Lily were awake.

It turned out that they were both asleep on the couch in the living room. Jemma was curled up with her back facing the back of the sofa toward the outer edge of the couch. Lily was cuddled up against her with her back pressing against back of the couch and her face buried into Jemma’s collarbone. Groot and Lily’s casted arm was tucked between them. Lily’s blanket was tucked around her with the corner of it hanging off of Jemma’s hip and her thumb from her other hand was hanging just barely still in her mouth. Daisy, having already taken her boots off at the door, dodged every creaky floorboard on the way into the living room.

Daisy couldn’t help the way their ever so soft snores were staggered to each other or the way her heart swelled and sent warm sensations through the rest of her previously chilled body at the mere sight of the two of them lying there, safe, sleeping and content. This was all that she wanted for them. This was what she fought to protect on all those missions. This was what kept her running headlong into dangerous situations she didn’t know if she’d ever make it out of alive. It was them. It always had been and it always would be for them.

With great care, she leaned over and gently curled her hand around Jemma’s shoulder and leaned over to kiss the side of her head. In her sleep, Jemma shifted and let out a hum. Her muscles tensed and Daisy quickly dropped her lips to Jemma’s ear. “Shhhh, it’s just me,” she whispered. “I’m home.”

Daisy moved and carefully wedged her arms under both of them, lifting them up enough to climbed her way onto the couch under them so she was seated inclined just slightly against the arm of the couch with Lily and Jemma each resting on top of one side of her and Jemma and Daisy’s legs tangled somewhat together down the length of the couch.

“Good,” Jemma murmured, still more asleep than away. Daisy chuckled softly and turned her head to kiss Jemma’s forehead as her wife nuzzled into the crook of her neck.

Lily let out a whimper and wormed around against Daisy and in Jemma’s arms. Daisy worked her arm free and brought her hand up and around Lily’s shoulders to comb her fingers through Lily’s sleep messed hair. “Everything’s okay, sweetheart,” she promised, turning her head this time to press a kiss to Lily’s forehead. Lily shifted again. “Shhh…go back to sleep, Monkey. You’re safe. Mummy and me are right here.” She whispered, moving her hand to press gently along Lily’s back. Both Lily and Jemma snuggled into her sides and a few moments later she felt them relax as the familiar warmth and sound lulled them both back into sleep. Daisy reached for the corner of the throw blanket on the back of the couch and shook it out to cover over all three of them. Within minutes of settling in with the two of them Elvis came to investigate. He plodded out a spot somewhere along Daisy’s stomach and against Jemma’s hip, walked himself in a circle and flopped down into a furry little cat ball to sleep on his human heating pad bed.

Daisy smiled to herself as she held onto her family. She was going to get to the bottom of the Inhuman Power Injector pen mystery, she promised herself that. In the meantime, though, she was going to work on healing herself along with her family. Bobbi had been right when she had told Daisy that they needed her. Bobbi hadn’t said aloud that Daisy needed them, which was equally true. She shifted a bit as her eyelids began to hang heavy and let the comfort of her family surround her and drift her off to sleep.

\---

**July 23rd 2022**

In the weeks that had followed their first family shrink visit and Fitz and Bobbi’s analysis on the injector pen, Daisy did what she did best in her free time when she wasn’t working or spending time with Jemma and Lily. She hacked her way across the web, tracing the money to find her way to whatever installation Ward might have used in order to facilitate creating a weaponized serum for the injector pens. On one particular day in her searches while she had been at HQ, she had stumbled across schematics. She had gone into the HQ in order to install some updates throughout the security systems. While that had been happening, May had gone to visit the Johnson-Simmons abode for lunch and to watch Lily for a few hours so Jemma could get some work done without heading to HQ and having to panic Lily with another car ride.

While the updates and upgrades were in progress, Daisy was set up on one of the holotables. She ran through the files she had acquired earlier in the day and rifled through the various purchase orders. 

Daisy sucked in a sharp breath and held it when a set of schematics came up. It took her a moment to remember what she had to do on the table to bring up a 3-D rendering of the schematics to project from the holotable. Her pupils blew out wide as she stared at the blue glow of the tube and its connected mechanics. She recognized it immediately as the cloning tubes that had been in Ward’s factory farm. It felt like it took hours to force herself to breathe again. Immediately she started tapping control on the table to find the connected invoices to start tracking the purchase dates. Invoice after invoice out of about a dozen separate ones tracked to dates before they had blown the factory sky high and their delivery address matched the address of the facility they had taken out, except for one particular invoice. The date was almost four months after the installation had been destroyed, four months after…Daisy felt the air leave her lung in a forceful whoosh.

“Hey Daisy, it looks like the updates in my office are-,” The words May had been speaking as she walked into the tech lab Daisy was in, with one of Daisy’s tablets in her hand, died on May’s lips as she spotted the familiar shape of the cloning system floating from the container. “Is that-,”

“He had more…” Daisy whispered, aghast. She was too startled as her brain started trying to put more of the information together; the dates, locations. Records. May pulled her phone up to her ear and Daisy heard the words as May called Coulson down to Daisy’s tech area but she was lost in the files, tapping and clicking away to absorbed as much information as possible with wide, feral eyes and blood rage in her one-track narrowed vision.

\---

**July 25th 2022**

“You didn’t even discuss it with me!” Jemma was on her feet, pacing and gesturing wildly every time she spoke – or rather, every time she near shouted. The pair were in Doctor Rhoads’ office for their own therapy session while Bobbi played babysitter at HQ.

Daisy cringed at the scolding tone and afterward, she winced at the way the cringe had pulled her sore, injured muscles. She had a healing split lip, a thin gash on her cheekbone that had been held shut with butterfly bandage strips, a fading black eye, bruises stretching along the left hand side of her neck in her oh-so-favorite shape – that of a hand print that had been left around it – she was also sporting a sling for her right arm since it had been dislocated (something, she had learned, that was more likely to happen after the first two times it had been popped from its proper position in battles), two of her ribs had been cracked, and she had bruises to her kidney from some particularly forceful blows she had taken to the back. That wasn’t to mention the other general scrapes and bruises she had sustained in the most recent mission. Her cheeks were slightly flushed pink, embarrassed that this conversation/argument was taking place in front of the doctor even though she knew it had to.

“It was a mission, Jem – I didn’t _plan_ for it to happen,” Daisy tried to stay as calm as possible as she replied, speaking mostly to her lap as she kept her eyes drawn down.

“Oh, don’t give me that-,”

“Give you _what_?” Daisy cut her off, finally lifting her eyes. “You know as well as I do that a mission can be scrambled in a moment’s notice, just like that,” She lifted her left hand and snapped her fingers. “We can’t always choose when they happen,” Daisy’s eyes locked with Jemma’s for a moment and then dropped again.

“You could have given us some kind of warning!” Jemma snapped. “I had _no_ idea where you were! You went into work to do system upgrades and computer work for a few hours and didn’t come home!” Tears had begun to sting Jemma’s eyes as she stared at Daisy, wounded and still drawn with worry even though Daisy was, technically, perfectly okay. Okay, she was on the mend and had no permanent injuries. “I had no idea…” Jemma sniffled and crossed her arms defensively over herself. Her eyes dropped to the carpet of the office. “I couldn’t reach _anyone_ because they were covering for you because you knew I wouldn’t have wanted you to go, Daisy, after everything…” Jemma paused again.

Daisy pulled herself to her feet and stepped towards her wife. “Jem,” Her voice was quiet, laced with its own emotion, with guarded emotion that Jemma couldn’t quite read through to figure out its underlying cause, to know what Daisy was hiding from her. She knew there was something. “I’m sorry, I didn’t-,”

Jemma jerked and took a half step backward when Daisy reached for her. She hated the wounded expression that pulled at Daisy’s discolored features when she did it. “ _Lance_ finally told me you had disappeared in a rush on a mission – one that no one would give him details on – Daisy, do you even comprehend what… _I thought you were dead!_ ” Jemma suddenly snapped at her wife. The tears had broken the dam of her eyelids and crested over them and down her cheeks.

“Jemma…” Daisy stepped closer again and lifted her good arm, preparing to pull Jemma against her to comfort her.

“No,” Jemma shook her head and put her hand on Daisy’s uninjured shoulder to stop her from advancing. “You had no right to hide some secret deadly mission-,”

“Jem, please…I’m sorry I scared you. I didn’t – it wasn’t my intention to do that. Coulson needed me on the mission and I didn’t have time. It wasn’t-,” Daisy stammer through her apology.

“ _Don’t_ you dare try and tell me it wasn’t a secret deadly mission!” Jemma snapped, shoving Daisy’s shoulder rather than just resting her hand on it. “How could you do this to us after everything that happened-,”

“I did this _because_ of everything that happened! Everything I’ve done is to keep our family safe!” Daisy finally shouted. “Don’t stand there and antagonize me like you haven’t rushed off into the field and nearly gotten killed!”

Jemma blinked, ignoring as more tears slipped down her cheeks. “I can’t believe you’re trying to turn this around on me…” she gaped at Daisy.

“I’m not trying to do that at all,” Daisy shook her head and held her good hand up in innocence. “I’m just saying that you and I put ourselves in danger when the job calls for it, for the good of others. That’s the mission. That’s the job. You know it as well as I do-,”

“Maybe it’s time to change the parameters of the job,” Jemma cut Daisy off, speaking more softly this time. Her shoulders were slumped slightly.

Her words caught Daisy off guard. “…What?” she asked.

“I…” Jemma sniffled and finally allowed Daisy to reach up and gently wipe off one of her cheeks with her thumb as she cupped the side of her face. “I don’t think I can do it anymore,” she practically whispered. Daisy moved her fingers to curl into Jemma’s hair and around the back of her neck to urge Jemma into her arms. Jemma leaned into Daisy. She uncrossed her arms and wrapped them around Daisy, pressing her fingers into Daisy’s back as she pulled her in close.

Daisy stroked her hand over Jemma’s hair and then brought her arm down around Jemma to hold onto her tightly. Jemma pressed her face into Daisy’s shoulder and Daisy ignored the discomfort from her injuries caused by Jemma squeezing her as if she might suddenly disappear without warning. “Jem, it’s okay,” Daisy whispered, almost pleading as she buried kisses against the side of Jemma’s head. “I’m sorry,” Daisy repeated countless times along with, “I love you…we’re okay, everything’s okay.”

“Daisy…I can’t,” She sniffled again and shook her head against Daisy’s shoulder and collarbone. “I can’t…we can’t do this anymore. We can’t lose you - _I_ can’t lose you…a-and…” Jemma’s shoulders shook as she tried to fight the emotions off and failed. “And Lily doesn’t deserve to lose either of us because…because we’re stubborn and self-righteous,” she said into Daisy’s shoulder. “I don’t want to make her an orphan…” she whispered. “I-I know you don’t either…”

Daisy felt that unintended wound as it gouged large tunnels through her heart. She didn’t ask Jemma what she was saying. Her own tears were falling as she listened. She knew exactly what Jemma meant. She knew she had no choice but to agree with her wife. Worse, she knew she would have to lie to Jemma in the future if they swore off field work. Daisy played her part. She kissed the side of Jemma’s head and held onto her, whispering reassurances as she rubbed along Jemma’s back.

Doctor Rhoads sat silent, watching them throughout the duration of the fight.. He let them console each other for a few minutes before he finally cleared his throat. Both women wiped at their cheeks and averted their eyes to the floor. “Why don’t you both have a seat again and we’ll discuss the points each of you made?” He motioned for the side by side chairs they had climbed out of during their fight. Daisy and Jemma exchanged unsure, somewhat squeamish glances and then walked hand in hand back to the chairs for the rest of the their session with the doctor.

\---

**August 18th 2022**

Jemma was scientist at heart. She always had been. She had assumed this would be the case for the length of her existence until the end. Jemma Simmons was, by no means, merely an analytical robot, though and today she felt like a distracted, sappy mess. She hadn’t had the equipment to work from home, as she had been doing as often as possible lately, so she had gone into the base to work on some mystery specimens that Mack and Fitz had picked up from…actually at the moment, Jemma couldn’t remember where these had originated, though she had written down a load of information in her notebook already.

Her thoughts were miles away from the here and now. She was stooped over a microscope, peering through both eyepieces from behind her usual protective glasses, gloves firmly in place on her hands and her white lab coat on just in case. This was how she had remained for the better part of a half an hour. Her mind had zoned out to thoughts of Daisy and Lily and their fight after Daisy’s last mission and the secrecy surrounding it. It had been almost seven weeks since the incident at the hospital. Three weeks had passed since her fight and talk with Daisy at Doctor Rhoads’ office. It had been a little over six weeks since they had started taking Lily to Doctor Rhoads for her PTSD from the accident. Out of the three of them, Lily seemed to be the one rebounding best and out of all of Jemma’s thoughts, that was the most comforting of them all.

Daisy and Jemma hadn’t spoken much about what had been brought up in that session, about the field assignments. Daisy had silently backed off of being involved in a number of missions. When she did go out on assignment, she at least had been very clear about notifying Jemma. Any time Jemma tried to approach the subject, Daisy would shut herself off, guard up the walls and find a way out of the conversation. It was maddening. Jemma felt lost and, even worse, when Daisy constantly put up her defenses around her, it left her feeling alone and exposed.

“Simmons,” May’s voice cut through the fog in Jemma’s brain. Gentle pressure accompanied the sound as May squeezed one of Jemma’s shoulders.

Jemma straightened on her stool, startled, and blinked a weary, glazed over gaze at the older agent. “May,” Jemma said as if reminding herself who it was that was standing next to her stool at the moment. “Hello,” she greeted as she tried to assemble the façade of the well-put-together Doctor Jemma Simmons, biochemist super genius extraordinaire. “What brings you to the lab?” She asked.

May had been watching Jemma and Daisy carefully for the past few weeks. It wasn’t abnormal for her to pay careful attention to everyone on the team without letting them know she was doing it. After she had walked into the tech lab and spotted the clone tub schematics Daisy had discovered, May hadn’t considered the fact that Daisy wouldn’t tell Simmons that she was going on a mission. Secrecy wasn’t something May had trouble with, but it hadn’t crossed her mind that Daisy would have kept Simmons that far in the dark. May had been kicking herself since they had returned with her and Daisy all banged up for not having prodded at Daisy to give Simmons at least a warning that she might be heading into trouble, even if she didn’t explain what the mission was for, exactly.

“You haven’t been yourself lately,” May spoke in her usual careful way. It was guarded, but not so much so that Simmons wouldn’t be able to open up if that’s what she wanted to do. “I know a lot happened and it’s still new and fresh, but,” May hesitated. “I just wanted to check in with you,” she said. “Make sure everything’s in proper working order.”

Jemma hesitated. Her eyes searched May’s from behind her protective glasses while she lightly chewed on the corner of her bottom lip. May inclined her eyebrows just slightly and waited patiently in silence for her to decide how she wanted to reply. Her glove covered hands attempted to fidget anxiously in her lap, though she couldn’t access her worn cuticles at the moment to mess with them out of her nerves. May glanced at Simmons’ hands when Jemma glanced at her hands in her lap.

“I, um…” Jemma cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders. “I’m doing alright,” Jemma was a better liar than she used to be when she first joined the team, but certain situations still left even her knowing that her disguise was faulty. May just watched her, looking upon Jemma in that way that made Jemma’s innards squirm. “It’s just that…” she lifted her eyes to May’s. “All we’ve been through, in the past, after that, I just…I guess I thought that…this would be like those times…”

“How so?” May asked to urge Jemma on as she kept a hand firmly planted along the back of Jemma’s shoulder.

Jemma blew a frustrated sigh out and as she opened her mouth to speak, she felt her eyes as they began to well against her will and internally cursed herself for letting her emotions start to get away from her. “I-I don’t know how to bounce back after…” She shook her head and turned her eyes down, feeling embarrassed by the sudden loss of control of her emotions. Jemma took a deep breath and steadied herself. “I’m not sure how I can explain it…”

“Try,” May pressed her with just the single word and a squeeze to her shoulder.

Jemma closed her eyes and considered everything over the last few months, attempting in moments to analyze what she had been trying to sort through and organize and mentally study all the information. There was just so much of it, and nearly all of it was tied to highly emotional events that were so intensely interconnected, it was hard to untangle all of it. “There’s always been an anchor,” Jemma said when she finally spoke, gesturing with her hands as if trying to conjure the right words just by the motion of her hands. “It’s always been there to pull me back. It’s always been her. I mean...It’s been Fitz too, of course, to a certain extent, in certain instances of course. But it’s always been her.”

“But?” May prompted again.

Jemma frowned. “But now she’s pulling away from me,” She looked over at May with confusing on her face. “I know she’s keeping something from me. I know she does this when there are things she’s afraid to say...but…” She paused a moment and let her hands drop to her lab coat in her lap as her frown pulled the muscles of her face down with it. “I don’t know what I’ve done…”

May reached used the hand on Jemma’s shoulder to reach out and pull her into a hug instead. She wanted to push Jemma further, to try and help her connect the dots. At the same time, she knew she couldn’t. She had already agreed to Daisy’s decision about the situation and it wasn’t May’s place to tell Jemma. It was Daisy’s. Jemma held on to May tighter than usual. Details came spilling out of her, about the fight they had at their therapy session, about her fears, about how Daisy had been so guarded and tense around her, about the fact that she knew she could probably snoop long and hard enough to find answer but that she wanted those answers from her wife, about how they hadn’t talked again about the field assignments even though she was aware that Daisy had dialed back her field involvement since the fight at Dr. Rhoads’ office.

At one point, behind them, Bobbi swung into the lab with the intention of saying hello and picking Jemma’s brain on somethings but she stopped, thankfully before she spoke, when she saw May holding onto Jemma as Jemma rambled all about what she needed to get out of her system. Bobbi arched her eyebrows at May but May just gave her a single shake of her head, solemn expression on her face. Bobbi gave a quick nod, turned on her heel and headed back out of the lab.

She stopped outside the lab and caught a bit of what Jemma was saying. Bobbi would have felt bad eavesdropping if she didn’t know what she knew about Daisy and the mission she insisted on keeping from Jemma, but on the other hand, she _was_ a spy, so. After listening to Jemma and May for a few minutes, Bobbi stole away into her and Hunter’s bunk for a moment alone to call Daisy.

\---

**September 6th 2022**

Did you seriously bait and switch me so you could literally pin me down for a lecture?” Daisy accused. It had been almost a month since Bobbi had called Daisy to tell her what she had over head between May and Jemma that day in the lab. Daisy had done all she could to keep from closing herself off whenever Jemma would talk to her. She forced herself to speak freely and sometimes bluntly while they were in their private therapy sessions with Doctor Rhoads, but when they were home and by themselves, Daisy still found ways to evade or change the subject.

Daisy had slowly begun to slip into a paranoid spiral. There were seven missing cloning chambers from the last of any and all orders Daisy had found lurking anywhere across vast swaths of information she had pulled from financial trails. Their possible locations were currently unknown. That meant that, however minute, there was a very real possibility that a Ward copy was lurking in the shadows somewhere. Maybe he was still in his orange suspended animation goo tube. Maybe he had been released when they killed the actual Ward at the hospital. Maybe the Ward Jemma killed wasn’t really the ‘real’ Ward, and was just Ward 2.0 after the Ward Daisy had killed a few years before him. Either way, there were seven potential chambers that could have Ward clones in them. On top of that, they still hadn’t found the lab facility that Ward had used or created to have his scientists engineer the injectors.

The potentiality the multifaceted situation unnerved Daisy and often sent her thoughts spinning off the rails. Normally when something was bothering her to that extent, Daisy turned to Jemma. There had been many days when she had wordlessly crawled into bed and sprawled on top of Jemma regardless of what work she was up late scrutinizing in the lamplight by the bed, and wrapped her arms around her wife, burrowing deep into the familiarity of home. Sometimes Jemma asked her what was wrong, sometimes she didn’t. Daisy’s answer was always the same; a murmured, “I love you, Jem,” as if that explained everything.

The worst thing about this situation was the fact that she felt that she needed to keep Jemma in the dark. Daisy absolutely loathed the way she had to cut parts of herself off from Jemma in order to keep from breaking down and confessing what was going on. Daisy stuck to her usual route – she would be strong where Jemma needed her to be strong. She didn’t think the news of both the use of Carter’s DNA in evil mastermind world domination plots or the potential for multiple Wards running loose in the world were things that Jemma could handle right now. Daisy had to confirm their existence and destroy all possible traces of both before she could tell Jemma the truth.

It was killing Daisy. Slowly more and more each day, the secrecy and distance between them was killing Daisy. She had to constantly keep those mental images revolving in her mind, the ones she wanted to push into the dark recesses of her soul and only let out when they were in danger of spilling over, to remind herself why she was doing what she was doing. She had to think about that day she walked into the morgue and saw Carter on the cold metal slab with her own eyes, in the flesh instead of over a grainy gray screen monitor. She had to think about that moment, hidden in the woods, slowly choking on her own blood as Lily sobbed and called her name. She had to think about the sound of Jemma’s desperately whispered pleas for her to come back while Daisy lay trapped in her body in the hospital. She had to think of every nightmare, of the way Lily would likely forever be affected by the traumatic experiences she had to endure simply because she was their daughter. Daisy had to keep all of it stored in a bundle of heavy grief in her gut, all the time, to keep herself focused, track and in the present, to keep her secret, to keep Jemma and Lily safe. Only when the task was complete would she be able to lay down her burdens and make her confession.

“ _What_? No!” Jemma defended herself with an indignant huff of air as she stammered out the reply. She shifted her weight as she knelt with a knee straddled across each of Daisy’s hips. Her fingers were still lightly pressed against Daisy’s left side, just between two of her bottom ribs, pressing to the small, jagged scar, a couple of inches long, barely there and the only one that still remained, from the accident.

__

_Out of the blue three days ago, Jemma had suggested they have an official date night, just to themselves. Daisy had eagerly jumped at the idea, though Jemma had seen through the enthusiasm in her eyes and caught the underlying anxiety there that she couldn’t quite place. The evening had gone so well to begin with. May had come by in the afternoon to pick up Lily, complete with an overnight bag to give Daisy and Jemma the night off completely. They had eased each other through the anxiety of Lily being away from one or both of them and worrying something would happen by reminding each other all through dinner at the fancy restaurant they had made reservations for that May was with Lily and she obviously wasn’t going to let anything happen to their daughter._

_After dinner, since they were already on the riverfront, they had gone for a long stroll in the dwindling heat from the day, hand in hand. They hadn’t talked about work. They hadn’t talked about the team. They just talked to each other, the way they used to, before there had ever been a ‘them,’ before they had crisscrossed galaxies, before…just, before. They made a stop for ice cream on the way home and during the whole ride home they fought to keep their hands to themselves while laughter bubbled out of each of them and they sung along to old songs that brought an almost terrifying level of nostalgia back to them. By the time they had pulled into the driveway, Daisy had felt like she hadn’t been able to kiss, touch or hold her wife for a millennia. They barely made it up the path, onto the porch and in through the door before Daisy had Jemma pinned to the back of it. Jemma had blurt out something about the alarm between kisses and Daisy barely managed to press her thumb over the scanner to keep the alarm from sounding off._

_They had shed most of their clothes by the time they had stumbled, lightheaded and snickering into the master bedroom. Daisy hadn’t felt so light and free in months. The two of them had fallen into bed together as a tangle of limbs, bodies crushed against each other in a mass that, looking from the outside, it was almost impossible in the dark to tell where one ended and the other began. The night had been going so well._

_It hadn’t stalled until Jemma had let her brain get the best of her. Her brain, and her body, had been firing on all cylinders in the wake of the rush of endorphins, dopamine and oxytocin releasing through the pathways in her system as a result of their evening and night together. Jemma had missed having Daisy close to her. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t been physically close or that they hadn’t found breaks, times to steal away together when the urge really struck them; it was the physical acts coupled with the way Daisy had been present and unguarded with her from start to present. The walls hadn’t been constructed and Daisy hadn’t sealed her off from all those places she used to let Jemma roam freely in her. They hadn’t spent the night with some dark menacing storm cloud hanging over them or in the backs of their minds. They had been free to reconnect the tethers between them that had become strained and frayed in the last couple of months since the accident._

_In the swell of heat and the all-consuming need to take in and absorb as much of Daisy as she could, to assure herself that their union hadn’t actually found a way to jar its equilibrium off to an unrecoverable stilted degree, Jemma had flipped Daisy onto her back with the intention of taking control. Daisy hadn’t fought her this time when Jemma had rolled them over, when she had pinned Daisy’s wrists over her head and had smashed their mouths together with electrically charged fervor. Daisy had stretched, shifted and arched beneath her, pressed her body close to hers, rocked her hips up against Jemma’s and kissed Jemma back as if she both wanted to lose herself completely in whatever Jemma’s wicked plan might be and at the same time, needed to prove something to Jemma._

_Jemma’s hands had been tracing their way down the undersides of Daisy’s arms, which stayed momentarily paralyzed above her head as Jemma’s fingers traced along the curves of her side. The path as one Jemma could have drawn from memory. Her fingers drew over Daisy’s rib cage as Daisy’s torso heaved for ragged gasps of air. And then Jemma’s fingers had ghosted over the scar. It was the only one that remained from the accident, as if the serum knew it had been Jemma to cause this one. This one came from the woods just after Bobbi had used the ends of her batons as a makeshift set of portable defibrillators to bring Daisy back. While Daisy had been gasping to breathe and gurgling on her own blood, Jemma had sliced her side open to alleviate her punctured lung to allow her to actually inhale air._

_Something about the lingering touch that Jemma traced along the scar had rattled Daisy. With a gasp and a forceful lurch of her body, Daisy had broken the kiss and reflexively attempted to shrink away from Jemma and her touch as if she had been burned. Her forehead pushed against the edge of Jemma’s jaw as Jemma pressed her hands firmly to Daisy’s sides. She had whispered Daisy’s name breathlessly and, in the next second, Daisy’s hands flew from their spot, to Jemma’s hips. She was shifting around almost desperately to escape._

_“Daisy…” Jemma gasped. She reached for Daisy’s hands but got her wrists instead. Pulling Daisy’s grip free, she had called Daisy’s name louder as she brought their hands together and settled them against Daisy’s sternum, edging toward the scar. “Daisy!” She called just as Daisy’s torso shot up so that they were seated, Jemma on top of Daisy’s lap and Daisy sitting upright._

_Daisy’s body stilled in its retreat attempts, all but the jagged, shallow gasps of air she continued to huff and puff. Even with her knuckles and the backs of her fingers touch the lower part of her ribcage, Jemma could feel the frenzied pace of Daisy’s heart. She stopped trying to retreat after Jemma called her name the second time and leaned more heavily against the edge of Jemma’s jaw. “Come back to me…stay here with me,” Jemma had pled the whispered mantra, expelling it in heated puffs of air against Daisy’s cheek._

_Daisy’s muscles tensed. Jemma had reluctantly let go of Daisy’s hands and wrists and slid her hands up Daisy’s arms. She buried her fingers into Daisy’s hair and let them rest at the back of her head. “Daisy-,” Just as suddenly as she had stopped them moments again, Daisy shifted. Jemma’s words were cut off by Daisy’s lips and her hands moved to circle the curve of her hips to pull Jemma tighter into her lap. Jemma felt the shift in activity more forcefully than she expected. Daisy had gone from light, playful and unrestrained in her enthusiasm to tense, rough and frantic. The instantaneous nature of the switch had alarmed Jemma. She had wanted Daisy to stay with her, to know that it was okay – they were home, they were safe – that this territory was theirs and they were here to reclaim it as their own._

_“Daisy-,” Jemma had tried to get her wife’s attention between feverish kisses. She felt the pull against her flesh of Daisy’s nails, digging in as if they could anchor her to the moment when Jemma knew she had floated away. Jemma let of the back of Daisy’s neck. She reached behind her and wrapped her hands around Daisy’s wrists at the same time that she leaned just her head back and turned it to the side to keep Daisy from kissing her again immediately. “D-Daisy…” Jemma stammered breathlessly as Daisy’s mouth, all teeth and tongue were just as suddenly attached to Jemma’s neck. She resisted the urge to give in to the need to satisfy carnal urges, but only just. With a forceful tug, she pried Daisy’s hands free from the back of her hips._

_Mustering up her willpower as she cleared her throat and fought through the dizzying fog that was quickly filling up her brain and tried again, “ **Daisy**.” Her tone wasn’t harsh but it was firm enough to let Daisy know that this was too much after the hiccup they had just had._

_“What?” Daisy barked against the front of Jemma’s throat, almost as if she were confused by Jemma’s reactions and that confusion spurred Daisy on to try harder to make Jemma shut her brain off. Just as her teeth sunk against the racing pulse point on the front edge of Jemma’s throat, her hips snapped and rolled in just the perfectly angled pitch to hit that one spot that always managed to short circuit Jemma’s brain. It worked too as Jemma’s head swung back, she cried out and did two things Daisy knew she’d do if she managed to hit the sweet spot; She dropped Daisy’s wrists, flung her arms around Daisy’s shoulders to hold on and her hips ground to ride down against Daisy._

_Daisy grinned against Jemma’s newly exposed throat. “Atta girl,” She murmured, sounding more predatory than seductive as it came growling from her throat. Her hands circled Jemma’s hips to try and return to their previous position but before they could reach it, they were stopped by Jemma’s hands. Jemma’s fingers dug into the flesh of Daisy’s inner wrists. Daisy’s brow furrowed and she unlatched her mouth from Jemma’s throat and leaned just her head back to look at Jemma’s face._

_“No,” Her voice was just above a whisper, her tone thick with emotion. Jemma watched as Daisy’s eyes met hers. Her pupils pulled back and shrunk as she looked up into Jemma’s wounded gaze._

_“Wha-,” Daisy’s eyes stared up at Jemma, a mixture of confusion and frustration swirling in them as she searched Jemma’s face for something. Jemma was still fighting through the haze of lust to figure it out in the moment, though._

_“You know what…” Jemma murmured in a gentle tone when she managed to find her voice again after calming her pulse down just a bit._

_Her answer made Daisy clench her jaw. Before she could let go of Daisy’s wrist to touch her cheek, Daisy wrenched her hands free and dropped back onto the bed with a grunt of frustration. “Fuck! Jemma can’t we just have a normal damn night together without the bullshit?” she had growled into her hands after throwing them over her face. Just like that, the guard towers had gone up and Daisy retreated into herself in a way that, up until recently, Jemma hadn’t seen her do since the time just after the temple, when she and Fitz were hiding her powers._

_While her face was covered, Jemma’s eyes dropped to the scar that had initiated the sudden turn in their evening. It was just a jagged little strip of skin and minor scar tissue, just about two inches long and it stood out just a single shade lighter than the skin of her ribs. That incision that kept Daisy alive long enough to get her into a med pod on a quinjet so they could get her hooked up to life support and get her to a hospital. It was one small part of the reasons Daisy was still here. Jemma’s hands moved from where they had come to rest against Daisy’s stomach to hover near it. Daisy’s muscles tensed when Jemma’s fingers touched the offending scar again. “Why are you doing this to me?” Daisy’s voice was lower than a whisper, momentarily choked with fear. Jemma almost thought she imagined it for a moment._

_“Daisy, I love you,” Jemma spoke at a normal, solid volume as she said it. She never moved her fingers from the scar even though Daisy was practically holding her breath as Jemma’s fingertips slipped back and forth across it almost as if each pass caused her physical pain. “I don’t know why you’re shutting me out…I need you to talk to me… **really** talk to me…” Jemma pled. “Tell me what’s going on.”_

_Daisy dropped her hands from her face and tried to brush Jemma’s offending hands away from the scar. Jemma grabbed both of Daisy’s hands in her own and returned to letting two of her fingers press against the scar while she held Daisy’s hands firmly and frowned._

Daisy had fixed Jemma with an angry glare and she had snapped that snarky comment at Jemma about the bait and switch. Jemma had stammered at her and now they were trapped in a stalemate, neither one of them prepared to back down from the fight while simultaneously not wanting to fight. Daisy broke first, shifting her weight beneath Jemma to try and worm free. “Let me go,” She muttered.

It was the wrong way to phrase her want to break free and retreat, though, because it made Jemma’s eyes well. Daisy could see in her wife’s eyes that she had wounded her further. “No,” Jemma shook her head. “This is not how this works, Daisy,” she clenched her jaw to keep the tears in though she couldn’t blink them away completely. “I’m losing you,” her grip on Daisy’s hands tightened and became vice like. “And I don’t even know why, or how it’s happened…” she frowned. “What did I do?”

Daisy’s brain fought for a dominant emotion. She was frustrated that tonight had turned into a recycle of most of their night time talk/arguments. She was angry at herself for doing this to Jemma. She was resolute in her belief that she couldn’t tell Jemma about what was going on until she was sure she had neutralized the lingering threat from it. Her heart ached for the pain on her wife’s face, in her eyes. She itched to find a clone of Ward so she could tear his throat out all over again. She longed for their lives from just a few months ago as tired parents doing what they could to get by and falling into restful sleep snuggled together each night, occasionally with Lily tucked between them. She wanted this…one night to be normal for them. She wanted to seek out the solace she always found in Jemma and to give that back to Jemma in reciprocity.

Daisy frowned and leaned to prop herself up on her elbows without letting go of Jemma’s hands. It wasn’t like she could anyway what with the death grip Jemma had clamped to them. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Jem,” She assured. “You’re not losing me. I’m right here,” she swore. “I just…it was just a little hiccup. It happens, sometimes – my brain just wasn’t….properly in tune and it got away from me for a second.” She squeezed Jemma’s hands and moved to sit up without pushing Jemma off her lap. “I love you. I’m okay, I’m fine…really,” she insisted, leaning up to lean her forehead to Jemma’s.

Jemma frowned as her eyes filled again. “No. You’re not,” she said. “You’re avoiding me. You’re keeping secrets. You’re…you’re shutting me out,” she frowned. “I don’t know how to handle you slipping away from me, I don’t know what I would do if-,”

Daisy pulled her hands free from Jemma’s and Jemma physically flinched at the loss of the contact. Daisy’s fingers wound into her hair and cupped her face by the back corner and edge of her jaw. “Jemma, I’m not going anywhere,” Daisy insisted.

“Daisy…we can’t keep doing this,” Jemma sniffled. “I don’t…” she cleared her throat. “I told Coulson that I’m done with fieldwork. I’ll work from the labs only and…and that if that wasn’t good enough, I told him I would…that I would resign so he could fill in my space…”

Daisy blinked and stared at Jemma with wide eyes full of shock. “Jem…”

Jemma’s hands came to rest on Daisy’s shoulders. She sniffled again and took a steadying breath. It came out ragged as she lifted her eyes from Daisy’s collarbone to look her in the face as she spoke again. “I don’t want to be the person that makes you choose between the job and…” she frowned, for the first time since she and Daisy had started this entire journey together that one Christmas Eve, Jemma honestly wasn’t sure that Daisy would pick her and Lily over the job. “And our family,” she whispered anxiously.

“Then don’t,” Daisy murmured as the fear soaked her through to the bones.

Jemma’s eyes kept steady on Daisy’s. “I can’t…I can’t handle the fear,” she whispered, refusing to drop her eyes even as she felt shameful for admitting it. “I can’t do it, Daisy. I…I really thought I could get past it after…after everything but…” she shook her head. “It’s not selfish to want our daughter to have both of us,” She said. “It’s our job, to protect her, right? You said that…we’ve both said it…this is how we do that, Daisy-,”

“Please don’t do this to me…” Daisy whispered almost as if it was to herself.

Jemma whispered back, “I have to.”

Daisy shook her head. Her face darkened and she turned it way from Jemma. She shifted and moved and this time Jemma shifted to let her out of bed. “We’re not doing this, Jem-,”

“You don’t get to leave me hanging, keeping secrets from me!” Jemma climbed from the bed after Daisy and followed close behind step for step as Daisy grabbed her button down shirt from the floor and slipped it around her, tugging her arms through it and beginning to button it. “You can’t walk around here in a daze and expect me not to ask you what’s bothering you! You can’t refuse to let me in and then tell me I did nothing wrong when clearly I’ve done _something_ to make you not trust me anymore!” Her voice rose with each statement as her heart crumbled in her chest cavity at the way Daisy kept moving to keep her back to Jemma, to avoid facing her and facing the decision.

“Coulson needs-,”

“No! Shut up!” Jemma shouted, cutting Daisy off. “Don’t even go there. Coulson, May, Mack, Bobbi – everyone on the team, we’ve all been given all the speeches and propaganda all about making the hard call in the moment it’s necessary, yeah?” She grabbed Daisy’s arm to stop her from making it into the bathroom to lock herself in and slipped around Daisy to stand in front of her. “Look at me,” Jemma demanded.

“Jem-,”

“ _Look at me!_ ” Jemma shouted with great force. Daisy was startled by the feral fury she saw now reflecting in her wife’s eyes. “ _This_ is that call, Daisy! Whatever your decision is, you need to make it. We can’t have both. Not anymore. We should have known that sooner but we held on and look at our consequences,” Jemma’s eyes filled all over again. “If you can’t make the call for me,” she frowned and her voice cracked a moment. “At least be courageous enough to make it for your daughter – we both owe her that much.”

Daisy’s head was swimming. That Jemma was giving her the ultimatum like this had thrown her. That Jemma thought she would pick anything over her and Lily had crushed something in Daisy that, more than her heart had shattered at the idea. She stared at Jemma, a lone tear tracking its way down her cheek. How could Jemma ever think…Daisy closed her eyes a moment and steeled herself against the pain in her chest. She let those terrible images from the past flood through her. She heard the sounds of Ward’s words in her mind’s ear, she saw the vision of Carter and his much too tiny lifeless body, she felt the familiar gravity of fear and shame from those months she was sure Jemma had stopped loving her and blamed her for Carter’s death, she heard both Jemma and Lily’s pleading for her to wake up in the hospital, she remembered the way Lily shook in her arms when she had found her in the hospital so scared that the little girl had wet herself. 

Daisy pulled a deep breath slowly in through her nose to steady her voice. “Protecting you both is what I’m doing,” Daisy stared at Jemma, hurt but forcing a steely resolve over her features as tears fell freely down Jemma’s cheeks. Reflexively, Daisy’s face contorted as she saw the pain there and reached up to wipe the tears away.

Jemma unceremoniously pushed Daisy’s hands away from her. She was shaking as Daisy stared at her. Neither of them expected the words that tumbled through a tremor from Jemma’s mouth next. “I think you should leave.”

\---

**September 29th 2022**

“Simmons,” Fitz said with a sigh. Try as he might to hide it, Jemma could see the pity in his expression. She wasn’t exactly sure but she thought she saw guilt in his features as well, though she couldn’t fathom why it was there. Perhaps he felt guilty for picking Jemma’s side and taking her to lunch to vent while Daisy spent the day at home with Lily?

Jemma pushed her food around her plate. “Fitz, please,” Jemma shook her head. “This is how it has to be,” She insisted, trying to convince herself it was the truth.

“But does it, really?” Fitz asked with a frown. He hesitated a moment. “You kind of gave her an impossible choice, yeah?”

Jemma frowned and flashed a glare across the table at Fitz. “Are you defending her decision?”

“No! I mean…maybe? I don’t…” Fitz sighed and took a breath to organize his reply. “She didn’t actually make a decision you know,” He pointed out. “You made it for her.”

“The choice was stay and be a wife and mother, work with the team with all her computer skills and stay a live…or die in some horrific way,” Jemma shot back at him. “I made the choice to protect Lily,” And damnit she was _not_ going to apologize to that.

“Yes, I know but-,” Fitz stopped short and pressed his lips together in frustration. He shifted in his seat. He was edgy and Jemma wasn’t sure why.

“You think I was wrong,” She accused him with a frown of betrayal.

“No!” Fitz shook his head. “No, I don’t think that,” He insisted, gesturing back and forth with his hands. He licked his lips and scratched at the back of his head. “I’m just…I’m just saying that…and I know this is true of you and Lily as well, but Daisy’s been through a lot…physically, not just mentally. She…” he frowned as he looked at the scowl Jemma had on her face. “She’s _trying_ to protect you both with what she’s doing, erm…in…you know…her own, eh…Daisy way?”

Jemma’s mouth dropped as Fitz’s face flashed with an expression she recognized. It was his tell, a specific way his mouth dropped before he forced his jaw to close and bit the inside of his cheek and shifted his eyes off over his right shoulder. “…You know something about what she’s keeping from me,” Jemma gasped as various emotions twisted up her face; pain, sadness, anger and rejection all at once.

Fitz’s eyebrows jumped up his forehead. “What?” He asked and then gestured with his hands again, shaking his head as he stammered. “No! No, no, that’s not – I don’t know anything! Hypothesizing – I’m speculating! As a scientist!” He insisted. He knew he was crashing and burning.

“How could you keep secrets from me with her, Fitz?” Jemma stared at her oldest friend, feeling crushed all over again from everything that had happened. For three weeks, Daisy had been living at the base out of a duffel bag. Every day she asked to come home or asked Jemma to see Lily. Lily constantly asked where Daisy was and the only time Jemma let herself come face to face with Daisy were for Lily’s appointments with Doctor Rhoads and with their own standing appointments with Doctor Rhoads, though she remained largely silent during the latter of those.

“I’m merely saying,” Fit said. “That perhaps the situation has more variables than do or die, hm?” He arched his eyebrows. “Scientifically.”

Jemma’s phone beeped to alert her of a text message that Lily wanted to know if they could all go out for pizza. She frowned at the phone.

“Go spend time with them,” Fitz said, knowing only from her expression that the message had to be from Daisy. “Even just a little while. Do it for Lily. She deserves time with both of you. At the same time. She’s too little to understand yet, yeah?”

Jemma frowned and nodded noncommittally. She moved, stiff and robotically, as she and Fitz made their way out of the restaurant after he paid their check, having left her lunch largely untouched. She had dropped a bit of weight in the last few weeks from her stress and grief. With reluctance, as Fitz continued trying to convince her that he wasn’t a double agent between the two of them, Jemma texted Daisy to agree to the pizza outing for Lily’s sake.

\---

Jemma would have been lying if she said getting to spend a few hours together with both Daisy and Lily made her happy. The pizza place that they normally went to also had an arcade area inside it so it was a popular spot for families. Jemma had been happy to watch Daisy take her usual role, bringing Lily around to the games she wanted to play, laughing and randomly delivering tickle and kiss attacks to Lily. But there was a morose bittersweet tinge to the scene underlying the happiness she felt at seeing them both together. Jemma still felt lost. Above that, she felt betrayed. She felt angry, that Daisy could be so stubborn for so long that it was being taken out on Lily, having to bounce between spending time with one of them instead of both of them, only having Jemma there at night to tuck her in, sometimes only getting to say goodnight to Daisy by phone. It broke her heart every time Lily asked where her Mama was and when she was coming home.

Jemma pushed all of her sadness aside whenever Daisy and Lily would return to the table to grab a drink or to tell her a story or grab another few bites of a pizza slice. She smiled. She laughed at the stories and made the appropriate reactionary comments. When it came to trying to make sure Lily was happy, safe and content…Jemma Simmons was a masterful actress and liar.

Daisy, on the other hand, never could fully mask her emotions from Jemma, whether it was leaving her heart on her sleeve or failing to shift her eyes just right to hide whatever emotion laid just under the surface. She had noticed that Jemma had lost weight before today but it had really struck her when Bobbi had dropped Jemma off at their home, before they had climbed in the car to head for the pizza place, that Jemma had dropped enough weight to look gaunt in the face and that her clothes were hanging on her improperly because of it. She noticed, as well, that Jemma had barely eaten much over the course of their meal.

When it came time to head home, the ride home was awkward and tense. Lily had been much better about riding in the car, but it was impossible for her to sleep on car rides anymore, which was still something that both Jemma and Daisy felt shocked about. There had been many late nights up driving around the neighborhood with Lily in her car seat to lull her to sleep when she was just an infant. Now Lily required distraction, whether it was conversation, or singalongs. It prevented Jemma and Daisy from really being able to talk.

Once in the driveway, Daisy climbed into the backseat to unhook Lily from her seat. She knew she wouldn’t be able to go in with them since she was still in the proverbial doghouse with Jemma so she wanted to get in as much time as she could with Lily, even if it was only on the walk to the door. She held Lily at her hip and against her shoulder, bouncing her gently as they went, talking about random things from the day. Jemma trailed behind them, watching their faces, memorizing those little angles that matched each other and trying her hardest to ignore the pull in her chest, the urge to reach for Daisy, the itch to refuse to let her go.

On the porch, Jemma reluctantly passed around them to unlock the door without opening it so Elvis wouldn’t escape. “Okay, sweetheart, time to say goodnight to Mama so we can go scrub you clean of those ball pen germs,” she grinned and made a show of scrunching up her nose.

Lily frowned. She looked between Jemma and Daisy and pouted. “Noooo, Mummy,” She shook her head. “I want Mama t’come toooooo,” Lily whined as she dropped her head to Daisy’s shoulder and buried her face into the crook of her neck.

Daisy frowned before she could stop herself. She rubbed Lily’s back with her free hand and swayed in her spot with her. She was just opening her mouth to speak after murmuring a few quiet reassurances to Lily, intending on making some kind of fib up to settle Lily down when Jemma spoke before her.

“It’s okay, Mama’s coming too,” Jemma said as she reached out and ran a hand down along Lily’s hair over the back of her head. Daisy blinked and turned her head from where it had been leaning against Lily’s to look at her wife. Her mouth hung open a moment and her face contorted, her brow scrunching into a furrow as if she was asking if Jemma was sure. Jemma just gave a small nod. She turned toward the house door and nodded for Daisy to follow.

Daisy adjusted her grip on Lily and turned to kiss the side of her head. “Hooray, bath time!” she let out a quiet enthusiastic cheer as she carried Lily over the threshold and into their home. She hadn’t been in the house at the same time as Jemma for almost three weeks. The distance, after everything that had happened to them, had been slowly eating away at every good and decent feeling Daisy fought to hang onto. She knew she had to keep working on finding the last of the cloning chambers and the laboratory that possibly had tissue or blood from Carter that they were experimenting on, or even from other Inhumans.

All she wanted to do was come grovel her way home and back into Jemma’s arms, to break down and confess her sins to Jemma and plead for forgiveness. But she couldn’t. So instead she and Jemma knelt and sat next to the tub while laughing and joking while Lily splashed about in the bath, overly excited now that she had both of them with her. She sat next to Lily as Lily laid between them in her bed while the both read her favorite books to her, indulging as she asked for a second, third and, finally, a fourth story in an effort to keep them both there with her until she finally had succumbed to her sleepiness and fell asleep, tucked in and clutching Groot at her side. Daisy had been reluctant to leave Lily’s side.

Still, she had climbed from the bed after Jemma and leaned over to kiss Lily’s forehead and whisper and ‘I love you,’ by her ear. She followed Jemma out of the room and pulled the door to its normal spot, mostly shut but still wedged open just a little bit. When she turned around Jemma, who had been watching her intently, jumped slightly and turned to head for the master bedroom. Daisy assumed that was her cue to leave. Daisy frowned. She couldn’t just let this happen to them, right? She had to do _something_ to fix what had happened between them. Two days ago, she had finally told Coulson that she was done with field work unless it was hands down there’s-no-other-option apocalyptic. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell the rest of the team so Coulson and May had to. She had made them promise that it was to be kept silent until Daisy herself informed Jemma. Daisy wasn’t sure how to go about this. She didn’t want Jemma to forgive her and let her come home just because Daisy agreed to her demands.

“Jem,” Daisy said softly from her spot. Jemma stopped and turned her head slightly in the direction of Daisy’s voice but didn’t turn around right away. “Can we talk?”

Jemma’s back stiffened and her muscles tensed. She forced them to relax and then gave a single nod and motioned for Daisy to follow her into the master bedroom. Once Daisy crossed through the threshold, Jemma busied herself with turning to shut the bedroom door.

“Thank you,” Daisy said to start off with as she shifted from one foot to the other anxiously. “For letting me come in with you for bath time and all,” she said.

“I did it for Lily,” Jemma replied in a deceptively calm tone. Her heart was racing at being in such close, closed off quarters with Daisy. She ached to be able to reach for her wife, but she couldn’t. That’s what she had continued to tell herself over the past few weeks. . If she and Daisy were at an impasse on the field work issue, then this distance was necessary, to protect Lily. Jemma could feel the tug of war her brain was raging with her heart.

“No…yeah, I know, but, I just…still,” Daisy shrugged and tried her best not to look like a pathetic, kicked puppy.

“I just…don’t want you to have the wrong idea…” Jemma stumbled through backtracking slightly. She cleared her throat and tucked her hair behind her ear. “You said you want to talk?” she took the moment to try and redirect the conversation.

\--

Daisy and Jemma had talked for almost two hours – sometimes in hushed stern shouts – dancing around each other and hashing it all out before one of them had finally cracked and reached for the other. All at once they had crashed together. This time there were no hiccups, only the rush of carnal necessity to reclaim each other. Not a damn thing had stopped them or caused more fighting. There had been some tears in the mix of heightened emotion, but it hadn’t given either of them pause.

Now they were lying stretched together in bed, legs tangled, hips and torsos pressed together, sharing the same pillow with their noses so close they were practically touching. Each had an arm tucked under the pillow beneath their heads and long minutes ago, Daisy had reached for Jemma’s and curled their fingers together. She slipped the fingers of her other hand through Jemma’s hair while her eyes took in everything about the smaller woman’s face. There were deeper divots in her cheeks, and sharper edges to her cheekbones, more definition around the edges of her eyes, an extra angled definition to her chin.

“You’ve lost weight,” Daisy whispered with concern. It was her fault this had happened to them. It was her fault that this was where they were, stuck in an awkward loop, afraid to talk to each other, having to relearn things about each other.

Jemma’s fingers trailed from Daisy’s hip up toward her sternum. Her eyes shifted from following their trail, to staring into Daisy’s face as the pads of her fingers traced the scar that had caused them such a terrible fight the last time she had accidentally touched it. Daisy’s eyelids slipped, closing almost all the way for a moment and her breath hitched just enough for Jemma to hear it while feeling the jolt from her diaphragm.

“Does it hurt when it’s touched?” Jemma asked as a couple of creases appeared in her forehead. Her fingers prodded this time against the scar, as if she had slipped into doctor mode, to try and find a source for the problem.

Daisy resisted the urge to push her hand away from the spot. Her fingers traced along the outer angles of Jemma’s face, over her shoulder and down her arm. “Not the way you’re thinking,” She answered, conscious of the fact that Jemma had completely avoided her concern for Jemma’s weight loss.

Jemma’s brow furrowed again and Daisy watched as her eyes darted back and forth, searching Daisy’s face for some kind of clue as to what she meant.

Daisy turned her eyes down for a moment to Jemma’s collarbone. “When you touch it…I don’t know how to…” She paused and inhaled a steadying breath. It came out choppy and stilted. “It feels different…than touching any other place,” she spoke softly. Jemma watched her intently while she spoke. Without looking up, Daisy knew that was true. “It’s a constant reminder of…” Daisy frowned. Her eyes met Jemma’s again and she cursed herself for letting too much emotion out, enough to sting her eyes just slightly with tears. “Of all the things I’ve put you through.”

“Daisy…” Jemma whispered, moving her fingers to Daisy’s cheek, sliding her hand along it to cup her cheek. Daisy closed her eyes to lose herself in the touch.

“Jem…w-will you let me come home?” It tumbled out of Daisy’s mouth before she could let herself stop the words.

The emotion choked in the plea made Jemma’s heart lurch in agony. They had fought, weeks ago (and since then too) after Jemma had told Daisy to leave. Daisy had begged and pleaded with Jemma not to kick her out. Eventually, she had given up and thrown some of her things in a duffel bag before leaving. Daisy had spent that first night sleeping in her car in the garage at the base, too broken and ashamed of herself to go in and let anyone on the team see her fall apart or lecture her about keeping things from Jemma. Looking at her now, all Jemma wanted to do was drag Daisy into a hug, hold onto her and tell her she never wanted her to leave again, that she hadn’t _wanted_ her to leave in the first place and that she had thought it was necessary. “Daisy…” her thumb swiped gentle lines along Daisy’s cheekbone. “I…”

“I’m sorry,” Daisy went on. Her eyes dropped again, embarrassed that she couldn’t just tell Jemma everything, frustrated. “For what I did to us…” She longed to tell Jemma about the fact that she ached, all over, from being away from both of them. That she couldn’t sleep without Jemma next to her, or how much she missed just lying down to cuddle with them, knowing if they were safe and happy. Daisy cleared her throat and stopped trying to fight her tears so much. “I don’t…I don’t know if it’s too late after everything, Jem, I’m so sorry for the things I put you through, I already told Coulson to pull me from the field – I’ll do anything you want me to, I just want to come home.”

For just a moment, Jemma felt like she couldn’t breathe as all of that came pouring out of Daisy. She definitely caught what Daisy said about talking to Coulson, but above that, Jemma realized just how harsh her punishment had been on Daisy. She had literally taken Daisy’s home away from her without thinking about the kind of cruelty that would cause someone who spent half of their life without an actual home. Jemma was horrified at the thought of what she had done, whether she had needed to do it or not. She broke her hand away from Daisy’s under the pillow and started to move.

Daisy took the movement and the sudden way it happened as a bad sign. She ducked her head and tried to hide her tears as she swiped quickly at her cheeks. She was already halfway through a sniffle and an apology when Jemma’s hands grabbed her by the sides of her face to stop her. She pulled Daisy in and kissed her quickly to stop her retreat. A moment later, Jemma pulled Daisy into her arms as tightly as they could hold her. She kissed the side of her head and her shoulder as Daisy’s face fell into the familiar curve of Jemma’s neck and shoulder.

“I didn’t want to send you away,” Jemma murmured against her ear, refusing to let go of Daisy. “I had to do it, Daisy, I know it was cruel,” she sniffled a bit herself. Daisy’s arms were wrapped tight around her middle, holding on as if for dear life, like whatever Jemma said next might somehow finish her off. “I love you,” Jemma said and Daisy let out a sob she couldn’t hold back. Jemma repeated it over and over again between apologies.

The two of them stayed that way for a long time, apologizing to each other, finishing out the last of their sniffles, clingy tightly to each other, until they heard Lily over the baby monitor in the corner of the room as she started to whimper and cry from a nightmare. Scrambling to toss some suitable pajamas on, Jemma let Daisy go and wake Lily up from the bad dream. It was only a few minutes after that that Daisy returned to the room with Lily settled on her hip, Groot in her hand and Daisy carrying her baby blanket with her. It took some time to calm Lily down enough to get her to sleep, but Jemma knew it would have taken much longer if Daisy hadn’t been there with them. Jemma wrapped her arms around both of them after fixing the covers. She kissed the top of Lily’s head and then Daisy’s forehead before she told them both she loved them. It was the most restful night Daisy had slept in weeks.

\--

**November 29th 2022**

“I think we’ve found it,” Bobbi said once she had strolled into the tech lab where Daisy was currently working on a project for Coulson. Daisy arched her eyebrows. “Fitz and Mack, they helped me comb through the money trails,” Bobbi tapped the file folder of papers tucked in her arm. “I think we found where all the trails lead.”

Daisy sat up straight at her desk. “You mean…”

Bobbi nodded. She motioned for Daisy to join her. “C’mon,” she turned and walked out of the room. Daisy put what she was doing on hold and jumped up to jog after Bobbi. Within a few minutes they were in Coulson’s office with May, Fitz, and Mack looking over a map on the projected screen.

“It can’t be that close,” Daisy marveled as she looked at the satellite photos on the screen. Her brow was furrowed up as she chewed on her lip.

“Every other receipt, wire transfer, purchase order and payroll stub traced to other locations that we’ve already taken out,” Mack replied.

“The more recent activity you sent me all generates from this location,” Bobbi told her. “Including these purchase orders,” Bobbi pulled a few specific papers from the file and slid them across the desk to Daisy.

Daisy’s eyes scanned the papers as she picked them up. The purchase orders in question were for medical supplies – a large quantity of specialized auto-injector pens among them. Daisy tensed and felt her heart rate surge for a moment.

“We’ll need to go in and make sure,” May spoke.

Coulson tapped a button along the controls on his desk and began to go through various enhanced satellite photos. “It’s too well guarded to storm the castle with our cameras,” He said. “However from the audio you found on the chatter bands, they’re looking to recruit engineers and scientists to replace the ones that didn’t survive the destruction of the Guatemalan facility.”

Daisy cringed as she thought about that particular mission. It was the one she had been injured on that had caused so much trouble between her and Jemma. “I can’t ask you guys to-,”

“Mack and Alisha are set to go in undercover for interviews on December 3rd,” Coulson cut Daisy off. He held a file folder out to Daisy. “This is all the information we could find on the facility and its security systems. We’re going to need a diversion and work arounds to last us long enough to get a look at the full scope of what we’re dealing with here.”

Daisy looked down at the write up in the file Coulson handed her. She nodded and for the next hour the team ran over some preliminary plans on what would be needed to facilitate the recon mission.

\--

**December 3rd 2022**

Daisy felt helpless running backend ops from the base while Bobbi, May, Alisha, Mack and Hunter were out in the field at the actual facility for the Recon mission. She had Fitz at her disposal to help with some of the technical issues that Mack or Alisha might run into while on their ‘interviews.’ May was in charge of the Operation and Coulson…was at the mall with Jemma and Lily…Christmas shopping. Coulson had set up the trip as a distraction to keep Jemma away from the base. Jemma had been somewhat suspicious but since Coulson had less time to stop in for visits, she had agreed to it.

Things actually ran smoothly for once. Hunter, Bobbi and May helped with the external diversion of making it look like the compound was under attack. Daisy set about hacking into their security systems and setting off various alarms on reactors and sealing groups of armed guards into sectioned off areas. It gave Alisha time to split off and investigate multiple areas without being detected. Daisy scrubbed all the security feeds, inside and out, to keep and images of Mack of Alisha off of them.

May, Bobbi and Hunter wound up a bit banged up from their scuffles with the guards but, overall, everyone came out of it in one piece. More importantly, Mack came out of it with a new undercover job. He was due to start immediately.

Two hours after the op, May, Fitz, Bobbi, Daisy, Hunter and Alisha were in Coulson’s office again. Daisy worked with a laptop in front of her slinging images and information to the projected screen. She was stopped on a particular cabinet in a medical wing of the building with labeled vials inside of a glass refrigerated case.

“I didn’t have enough time to actually see the labels on the vials. All I could do was snap these pictures.” Alisha said. “It looked like they had patient names on them along with codes I couldn’t decipher, but,” she smirked. “I had enough time to plug the skimmer into the back of one of the computers in the lab. It was under a desk and it’s likely they won’t notice it before you can finish grabbing at least some of the files?”

Daisy nodded and offered a small smile. She felt nervous and anxious. She didn’t like leaving Mack behind under a false identity and stuck in the middle of the compound. She knew he could hold his own but she still didn’t like it. “Thank you,” Daisy said to Alisha. “Once I get the files and decrypt them, there’s no telling what we’ll be able to find out.” She said.

Alisha nodded. May was about to speak when they all heard high pitched squeals of glee and knew that Coulson, Jemma and Lily must have arrived back at the base. “Dismissed for now,” May said and the group began to disperse.

Daisy quickly shut down the projection screen and her computer and closed it. She and May left the office together to go and meet Coulson, Lily and Jemma in the common room area, where it was decided that the five of them would steal away for dinner out, once May had a chance to wash up.

\---

**December 13th 2022**

Daisy made her way up to Lily’s room with the newly turned three year-old asleep on her shoulder. Lily’s birthday party had gone well into the evening and she had spent most of the last hour of it asleep in Jemma’s arms, drooling on her shoulder and barely keeping a grip on Groot by his tail. Coulson and May were the only ones left, finishing up the very last of the cleanup detail as Daisy had taken the Lily pass and headed upstairs. She stopped in the bathroom and woke Lily up to brush her teeth and wash her face and hands. A bath could wait until tomorrow.

Lily was yawning and fighting her half lidded eyes as Daisy helped her change into her pajamas and pulled her hair out of its ponytail to brush it for her. “Somebody’s worn out,” Daisy said with a chuckle when Lily started to scale her way into her bed without prompting. It was a long struggle, keeping Lily’s routine at: bath time, story/sing time, sleep. It took two or three readings of a favorite book and two or three singings of a chosen song to get Lily to settle into bed for the night as she was always fighting to stay awake. Lily nodded as she yawned again, causing a high pitched little squeak sound to escape her when it happened. She wormed her way under the covers and snuggled up next to Daisy’s hip since she was sitting on the edge of the bed.

Daisy chuckled. She leaned over and kissed Lily’s forehead and pulled the covers up to tuck her in. “Did you have a fun birthday?” she asked.

“Ya huh!” Lily murmured through another sleepy yawn.

Daisy grinned and brushed her fingers through Lily’s hair. “All those presents everyone brought you – how will you ever know what to ask Santa to bring you for Christmas?” she teased with a quiet gasp.

Lily’s eyes popped open wide for a moment and she rolled back slightly to look up at her Mama. “I askeded already!”

Daisy let her eyes widen slightly. “You _did_?” she grinned. She was really going to miss it when Lily reached the point where the last few bits of her letters stopped morphing into not quite the right sounds, or when she no longer added extra “ed”s and such onto certain words. Lily nodded repeatedly. “When?” Daisy asked even though she knew already that Lily had gone to see Santa when Jemma and Coulson had taken her with them Christmas shopping. Coulson had stood in line with her for almost two hours while Jemma shopped. He had texted Jemma when there were only four people left in front of them and she had made it just in time to see Lily animatedly talking away with the mall santa.

“With Pop-pop!” Lily said, exasperated despite her sleepiness.

Daisy chuckled. “Oh, that’s riiiiight. Pop-pop and Mummy took you with them to the mall to see Santa – how could I forget?” She asked. Lily threw up her hands and hunched her shoulders in a big shrug and Daisy chuckled again. “What did you ask Santa for?”

Lily looked up at Daisy, the picture of heavy-lidded sleepy innocence and said, “I askeded for a baby brother – like Casey!” Lily announced, speaking of one of her friends among the neighbors’ kids. Casey’s had a little brother who had just recently turned one. Lily always tried to encourage him to tag along while they were all running around the playset in the backyard even though the kid was highly unsteady on his feet still.

Daisy’s eyebrows arched up her forehead. “You want a baby brother?” she repeated.

Lily nodded quickly again. “Shhhh don’t tell Mummy!” She grinned all her little baby teeth at Daisy.

“It’s a secret?” Daisy asked. Lily nodded again. Both were unaware that Jemma had stopped outside of Lily’s bedroom door to listen without interrupting them. Daisy chuckled. “I don’t know if Santa had enough time to arrange that one for you, Monkey,” She said gently.

Lily was unperturbed by this suggestion. She rolled toward her side and snuggled up against Daisy’s side again. “Santa can do anything!” She murmured.

“What if he messes up and brings a baby sister?” Daisy combed her fingers through Lily’s hair and rubbed her back as Lily wormed around to find a comfy spot again.

Lily scoffed, an offended sound in the back of her throat that sounded so much like the indignant sound Jemma made whenever Daisy was suggesting something so far off base in science that her brain short circuited that Daisy looked toward the doorway, thinking Jemma had joined them before she realized it came from Lily. “Yuck!” Lily exclaimed.

Daisy laughed. “A baby sister is ‘yuck’?” she asked. Lily nodded against her side. Daisy chuckled. She leaned down and kissed the top of Lily’s head. “You, my little Monkey, are wonderful, I love you,” She said. Outside in the hall, Jemma made sure to back up and then make loud enough sound to let them know she was approaching. Daisy knew, then, that she’d been listening in the hall. Jemma stepped in to join them, settling in on the other side of the bed next to Lily. After a few last ‘happy birthday,’s, ‘Sweet dreams,’s and ‘I love you,’s, Jemma and Daisy let Lily drift off to sleep.

Once she was sure Lily had been asleep for a little while, Daisy turned her head to kiss the top of Jemma’s, which had been resting on her shoulder. “Did you hear all that about Santa?” Daisy whispered.

Jemma nodded and exhaled a soft chuckle. “She certainly didn’t tell us she asked Santa for that,” she replied.

“A tall order to handle in twelve days,” Daisy smirked as they both started to untangle themselves from the bed. Daisy waited for Lily to shift about in her sleep and then fixed the covers around her.

“Perhaps a puppy will keep her from being too disappointed when the jolly old man doesn’t deliver?” Jemma joked when they were in the hall after closing Lily’s door most of the way.

Daisy snickered. “I don’t think Elvis would appreciate that much.”

\---

**December 16th 2022**

Jemma was just finishing loading up some samples into an incubator in the lab when Daisy appeared in the doorway to the lab.

“Hey,” Daisy said, rapping her knuckles lightly on the doorframe.

Jemma looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Hey, yourself,” she turned back toward the controls on the incubator. “Just a second,” she said before she programmed in the proper settings for what she needed. When she was finished she removed her protective gear and disposed of it properly. Daisy stepped further into the lab and waited by one of the table tops as Jemma stepped over to the sink to wash her hands. “Where’s Lily?” she asked while she washed her hands.

“She’s playing her new favorite game,” Daisy said as she randomly tapped out a light drum along the table top. Jemma arched her eyebrows, drying her hands on a paper towel as she walked over to where Daisy was, making note of the shift in her weight from one foot to the other and the way her hands kept fidgeting with different things. “Giggle maniacally at Uncle Hunter while proving she has better control of her powers than he does,” The right corner of Daisy’s mouth turned up into what Jemma could have only described as a proud smirk.

Jemma let out a short snort of laughter. “She gets that laugh from you,” She tossed the paper towels out. Normally a comment like that would have made Daisy drop her draw in feigned shock and a teasing argument about who gave Lily what specific genes would ensue. That didn’t happen today. Daisy, instead was lightly biting into the corner of her bottom lip. She shifted on her feet again and her brow creased just once. “What’s wrong?” Jemma asked as she stepped closer and slipped her hands up and down the outsides of Daisy’s biceps.

Daisy glanced at the incubator and then looked back at Jemma. “Do you have a minute to go talk?” she asked. “It can wait until later if you need it do?”

For what she thought were pretty obvious reasons, given the last half year or so, Jemma felt immediately alarmed. She swallowed back the lump of fear in her throat and nodded. “No, yes, I mean, yes I have time. What’s on your mind?” she asked.

Daisy stepped back and held her hand up for Jemma, who took it without question. Daisy tried to give her hand a reassuring squeeze before she turned and led the way out of the lab. She brought Jemma to the tech lab and into her assigned office, where she shut and locked the door behind her to give them some privacy.

“Daisy, I don’t mean to be cagey, but you’re scary me a little,” Jemma said once they were finally in Daisy’s office. Their walk had been fairly silent, not that it was very far from Jemma’s work space to Daisy’s.

Daisy frowned as she pulled a chair over next to her desk chair and patted it for Jemma to sit down. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make you anxious,” She sat down.

“It’s alright, I’m just…worried,” Jemma moved to sit down and Daisy sat in her chair, turning it to face her. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

Daisy inhaled a deep breath. “The undercover mission that Mack’s on,” She said.

Jemma let out the breath she was holding. “Oh,” She cleared her throat. “Yes, well, I’m afraid my help wasn’t needed on that mission, so I don’t have any of the details. Do you want to fill me in?” she asked, still unsure why this conversation might be cause for a private meeting for them.

Daisy looked down at her lap a moment and shook her head. “I asked Coulson and May and the others to keep this one…” She frowned and looked across at Jemma. “I told them not to involve you,” she confessed. “And asked that they keep it to themselves until I had it under control so that I could tell you.”

Jemma was quiet for a long moment, taking all those words in. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known this had to be the case, given the circumstances and the issues Jemma and Daisy had had a few months ago. She inhaled a steadying breath and nodded. “And you have it under control now?” she spoke after carefully considering all of her possible reactions.

Daisy’s tongue struck out along her lips and she pressed them together tightly. She gave a small shake of her head. “Not yet,” she cleared her throat.

“So…you’re telling me that…you kept it a secret, organized our bosses to keep me in the dark as well, so you could quietly handle it in your own way until it was done but it’s not done so, what? This is…this is to tell me something I already somewhat figured out on my own?” Jemma spoke without malice, just trying to wrap her head around the situation. Her brow was a mess of worry creases and her muscles were tense as they sat there.

“No,” Daisy shook her head. “No,” she cleared her throat. “I’m telling you that…I want to explain to you what’s going on, so that you know and…and maybe so you might be able to understand why I did what I did.” She said.

Jemma’s brows knitted together tighter as Daisy watched her for some kind of sign. Jemma reached out and brought her hand to rest over top of Daisy’s in her wife’s lap in an attempt to calm her fidgeting down. “Okay,” she acquiesced with a small nod. “Tell me.”

Daisy nodded. She took her time, careful of all the words she used as she explained everything – the injector pen, Fitz’s analysis of it, the fact that Ward hadn’t been lying when he said Carter’s DNA had been used in the serum, the money trails she had sought out and had the others help her comb through, the purchase orders that led them to the various lab facilities, including the one Daisy had been injured at, the fact that they had not yet found the facility that was responsible for producing the serum and injector pens, the fact that there was one purchase order of cloning chambers missing still that traced back to a facility in Vermont that had also had a number of large purchase orders for the injector pens, that Mack was currently working at undercover.

When it was all said and done, Daisy hesitated. Jemma was, obviously, shell shocked by the information. Daisy was holding tightly onto one of her hands. “Jem, I didn’t keep it from you because I didn’t want to tell you, I didn’t tell you because I-,”

“Because you thought I was too weak to handle it,” Jemma cut Daisy off. She hadn’t pulled her hand out of Daisy’s but her grip had steadily tightened as the weight of Daisy’s confession began to bear down on her. Her face darkened and there was a cold, calculating look in her eyes that Daisy had only ever caught a glimpse of just after Jemma had thrown Ward into the cremation furnace in the morgue at the hospital.

“What?” Daisy blinked and shook her head. “No, that not what I-,”

“You don’t have to pretend anymore, Daisy,” Jemma clenched her jaw. She locked her eyes with Daisy’s. “I know you think I’m weak, that I can’t handle anything-,”

“No! Jemma, stop,” Daisy let go of Jemma’s hand and reached out for the sides of Jemma’s face. “You aren’t weak. I never thought that,” She shook her head. “I _don’t_ think that,” she insisted. “I know how the anniversary catches you every year,” she went on, trying to explain it. “I know how scared finding those purchase orders for the cloning chambers made me, thinking about there being another Ward or multiple Wards out there plotting, knowing that he was using our son to...to…” Daisy closed her eyes and shook her head. “I didn’t want you to have to carry that burden, not like-,”

“Like you were?” Jemma’s eyes were still dark but they were tinged with a sadness in them as well. “Because you had to shoulder it alone, again? Why? Why don’t you trust me to pick you up when you fall down under the weight of these situations?” She asked, eyes searching through Daisy’s.

Daisy frowned. “I do trust you to do those things, Jem-,”

“No,” Jemma shook her head. “You don’t.” she moved from Daisy’s grasp and stood, crossing her arms defensively over herself as she began to pace. “You didn’t. You shut yourself off around me, put up all these defensive walls and wouldn’t let me in to help you defend them and you kept all of this buried and why? To spare my _feelings_?” She spat at Daisy almost as if she had been betrayed. She stopped and looked toward Daisy. “I suppose this is my fault, though, isn’t it? After that _monster_ took our son from us, I made you do that, right? I made you turn off your emotions because I was too lost in mine – so this is the punishment, is that it?”

Daisy stared at Jemma, lost for words and gaping. She stood and crossed toward Jemma. When she reached for Jemma’s arm, Jemma jerked back but Daisy didn’t stop. She reached again, first firmly grabbing the outsides of Jemma’s arms and then, when she struggled, reaching for the sides of her face. “Jemma,” she said her wife’s name sternly but calmly. She could see the fury as it built behind Jemma’s eyes and she didn’t know how to stop it. “I didn’t do this because I didn’t think you could handle it emotionally,” she said. “I did it because I was scared about what you’d do when you found out, after Ward, in the morgue…I…I was scared I would lose you to that darkness.” She confessed with a small shake of her head.

Jemma stared at Daisy for a moment, pupils blown wide and aghast at the idea.

Daisy pulled Jemma, wrapped her arm around her waist and walked her off to a small mirror on the inside of a small supply closet in her office. “It’s already happening, right now,” She said. “I can see it in your eyes,” she took a steadying breath, her eyes meeting the reflecting of Jemma’s in the mirror over her shoulder. “I can’t lose you Jem. Lily doesn’t deserve to either. She’s the one that’s here with us. She’s the gift we were given. She’s everything, and I can’t spend this life without either of you. I did what I thought I had to. I know you think it was wrong…and I’m sorry for…everything we’ve been through, Jem. I love you.”

“W-why are you telling me this now?” Jemma asked in the ghost of a whisper as she stared at her the dark abyss threatening to consume her. She felt the pull of that void as she continued to let her anger at the information Daisy had given fill her up, sucking her down into bleak thoughts of depravity. She had felt this swell within her chest once before, when she had cranked the dial on the furnace and watched Ward scream as the heat consumed him.

“Because I’m can’t leave that to chance. I have to see it with my own eyes…to know it’s done for good,” Daisy said. “…and I need to know that you’re in my corner and have my back on that decision.”

\---

**December 23rd 2022**

Daisy had already been at the base already when the call came in from Mack giving the go-ahead to come and pull him out of the operation. Lincoln had accidentally fried one of the lab computers and Daisy and Fitz had been for almost three hours by that point, prying the melded plastic and metal apart to get in and recover the data. Both had dropped what they were doing and scrambled to run for the bus. Fitz stayed behind but had run back and forth eight times between the science lab and the back of the bus, lugging cases of weaponry.

That had been about two in the morning. Around three, when they were already airborne, Daisy had called Jemma to tell her what was going on. The plan would take them two hours round trip flight time, plus whatever it took them to get to Mack and destroy the compound.

It was almost seven in the morning. Fitz and a few other techs were working to restore communication with the bus after it had been wiped out an hour and a half before.

Jemma paced and tried to find ways to help or ways to rig up some other kind of communication when Daisy, Bobbi and May all failed to respond to their mobiles. Alisha waited in Daisy and Jemma’s old room with Lily while she slept in case she woke up and also sent copies of herself scurrying off from the comms area to wherever Fitz needed for different tools and supplies.

\--

The compound was rigged and ready to blow. Bobbi and May had their hands full carrying a lumbering, injured, Mack, one of them under each of his arms to support his weight. Daisy and Coulson were making last sweeps of the compound. When they had found Mack, he was barely conscious and mumbling about ‘saving the children.’ Daisy refused to leave without making sure there weren’t any children locked somewhere in this cement laden hell.

“How long’s the timer set for?” Coulson asked.

“14 minutes and counting,” Daisy replied with a glance to the watch on her wrist. “Found anything on the north end?”

“Nothing,” Coulson answered.

“I’m almost finished here,” She paused as she stopped against the wall and swung around the corner, her gun pointed outward in front of her. “Head back to the bus, I’ll meet you there in three minutes,” She said.

“Remember when I was the one in charge?” Daisy could hear the smirk on Coulson’s face as her muttered it.

“Old men take longer to hobble,” Daisy teased as she made her way into a sterile room with an exam table in the middle of the floor. A scientist was just scurrying out of what looked like a secret door. “Stop there! Hands up, don’t move-,” the scientist reached for an emergency switch next to the hidden entryway, presumably to seal it off, and Daisy threw her gauntlet clad hand out. Shockwaves flew from the end of her hand with a whoosh and sent the man flying out of reach of the switch and into the opposite wall. He collapsed to the floor in a heap and Daisy pushed through the opening, stopping to fiddle on the control panel so she could rig it to stay open.

Daisy moved forward down a dimly lit corridor, there were four doors along the corridor and no windows. She kept her gun aimed and reached one hand free toward her ear for her com link. “Hunter, you owe me fifty bucks,” she said as she approached the first door and prepared to open it while keeping herself covered with her weapon.

“Bollocks!” Hunter muttered back.

“Found the secret door, guys,” Daisy said after smirking to herself. “Heading down the rabbit hole now.”

“Daisy, I’m headed your way,” May added.

“What about Mack?” Daisy asked as she cleared the first room on the right and then the first one on left. It left her with two doors, one down the hall on the right and one at the dead end of the hall. She headed for the one on the right to check that one first.

“Lincoln and Hunter are taking care of it,” May said.

“Coulson’s already in the building,” Daisy pointed out.

“Clearest exit is the south side of the building, Coulson’s heading that way and I’m halfway to your location,” May said.

“You got it, Boss,” Daisy turned the knob on the door in front of her as quietly possible so the latch was open. She positioned her hands on her gun and locked her arms before using her foot to push the door open and swing into the room to check the corners. She had expected to come up against armed guards, instead she was suddenly in the middle of a large room that, at first, reminded her of a science lab that had was experimenting on large animals like monkeys or dogs. Cages big enough for German Shepherds, made of stainless steel lined the walls on each side, all with matching crisscrossed caging bars. Some had intravenous bags hanging outside of them that fed inside.

As Daisy stepped into the room, she was expecting to find dogs in the cages. She stopped short when she realized they weren’t animals at all. They were children. “Coulson, Hunter, Bobbi, all free hands, need you at my location immediately for multiple extraction,” she barked into her earpiece.

“Daisy, what’s going on?” Coulson called back.

Daisy stared back at the various wide eyes that stared at her from the cages. Kids ranging anywhere from seven or eight on down huddled in their cages, backing towards corners and staring in Daisy’s direction with varying levels of consciousness and fear. Daisy slowly lowered her weapon once she realized the guards had abandoned this area and holstered it in its normal spot on her leg. She held her hands up, arms bent at the elbows to try and show them that she wasn’t going to hurt them.

“Mack was right,” Daisy breathed into her com link. “They’re experimenting on kids…”

A little boy in the closest of the cages to Daisy, who couldn’t have been more than five years old and was so emaciated she wasn’t sure he was even alive, let out a frightened whimper when Daisy reached for the lock on his cage. If it hadn’t been for the noise, Daisy would have thought he was dead, he didn’t blink, only started and remained stock still. He was playing possum in a place where there was nowhere to hide. Daisy felt the simultaneous pull of maternal concerns on her heart and of anger at the scientists and goons who ran this place as it bubble within her. “Everything’s going to be okay – we’re going to get you out of here,” she glanced at the medical write up that was slipped into a slot at the front of the cage and wished she had communication capabilities with Jemma right then so she knew how bad it might be to disconnect any of these kids from the IV lines, if any, they were hooked up to.

There were ten cages on each wall stacked in two rows of five. Daisy looked to see if there were any traps set for breaking the locks and then dashed a control panel she saw at the other end of the room. After clicking her way quickly through a number of protocols, she turned off an attached alarm system. And then she took to the cages, two and a time, wrapping on hand around each lock and focusing her shockwaves just enough into them to bring the locks shattering to pieces. Each stop she made, she told the kids inside her name and asked for theirs to see if any could, or would, talk. All of them seemed too scared. Even the ones who were older - five, six, seven, maybe eight? - didn’t move from their cage once Daisy had the doors open.

“Daisy,” May rushed into the room. Daisy had already been reaching for her gun when she heard May’s approach, but stopped when she saw her. May stopped in her tracks as her eyes took in the situation around her.

“We need to get them out of here,” she glanced at her watch and then looked at May. “There are twenty of them in here and there’s still another room I haven’t gotten to at the end of the hall. It took you two minutes to get here from the extraction point,” Daisy said. “It’ll take another two for the others to get here. We have ten minutes left on the timer. There’s no time to get back and reprogram the timer,” She helped the first boy out of his cage and handed him to May. “Two at a time?” She asked. May just gave a nod as Daisy helped the girl in the next cage out of it and handed her over to May. May adjusted her grip on each, turning with them and telling them her name before telling them to hold on tight to her and then she started running.

Bobbi, Hunter, Coulson, Joey and Lincoln - who Mack had shoved away from him and sent running for the secret corridor to help - passed May in the hall and spotted the kids in her arms. All of them looked stunned by the time they arrived, but they did arrive with one rolling gurney. Daisy snapped them out of their shock and into gear. They managed to load ten of them onto the gurney, squeezed tight and holding onto each other. The pulled the metal arms of the gurney up and Lincoln and Joey raced off with them down the hall. Coulson, Hunter and Bobbi were both hot on their heels each with two more of the gaunt children in their arms. As Bobbi was trailing out of the room, May came running back in. Daisy glanced at her watch before grabbing the next kid, a little boy no more than three, who clung to May as soon as she was in her arms. 5 minutes left.

Daisy grabbed the last of the children, the little boy she had first locked eyes with in the room. She and May rushed into the hall and then Daisy skidded to a stop. “Wait!” She called suddenly. May stopped in her tracks and whirled around. Daisy rushed down the hall toward her. “Take him with you, there’s one more room-,”

“Daisy, there’s no time-,”

“There could be more!” Daisy handed the boy over. “Go! I’ll be right behind you! We’ve got five minutes! _GO!_ ”

“Hurry,” May said with one solitary nod. She hesitated just for a second and then she was gone, running back for the Bus at the extraction point.

Daisy ran to the end of the hall. She pulled her weapon from its holster and then used one hand to bust the door open from its sealed lock. She pushed into the room and found no living threat but came face to face in the middle of the room with a cloning tube. Suspended in the orange goo inside the tube was a brand new Ward, sporting the scars Daisy had given him the first time he had been killed and a few new ones. Daisy ground her teeth together, clenching her jaw tight as she felt her anger surge. The movement of Ward 3.0’s chest as the respirator breathed for him in the suspended animation, made Daisy want to pull open the chamber and tear his throat out all over again.

She raised her gun to shoot but something connecting to the cloning tube from behind it caught her eye. Daisy stepped closer, moving around to the side of the orange cloning chamber. Behind it was a smaller chamber, this one blue. Daisy recognized it from the first time they had seen the cloning chambers...In the first facility they had destroyed, the day she had first killed Ward, the day Carter had...Daisy had seen these chambers too. They had held babies, Inhumans. The chambers were classified by what time of power a particular Inhuman baby had. Daisy stepped around closer but jumped back when the Ward clone suddenly banged on the glass and started struggling to get free. She aimed and shot the latch of the chamber door and kicked it outward from her spot. The very awake clone, fell with the rush of liquid onto the floor on his hands and knees, with the respirator jerking him back toward the chamber still. He turned and lunged for Daisy and she squeezed off three successive rounds right into his forehead. She then emptied the rest of the magazine blindly into his back.

Switching out her empty magazine for a new one by muscle memory, Daisy holstered the gun and walked around to the blue chamber. She didn’t need the plaque with information on the child to figure out who they were or what they could do, however. The moment she laid eyes on the occupant Daisy felt the air go rushing out of her.

“Daisy, countdown’s at three minutes, forty-five seconds, what’s your status?” May called over the com links.

“C-Carter…” Daisy gasped, not having heard May’s actual question. Her hands pressed against the glass, stunned into paralysis for a moment.

“What? Daisy, repeat that,” May called to her.

Daisy’s fingers moved quickly along the control pad, trying to figure out how to get the thing open properly. Her eyes hit the information plaque and her son’s name jumped out at her, followed by the listing of specs on his Inhuman DNA, followed by his age (2 months), the number of times he had been cloned for this purpose in the past (7), his weight (7lbs, 2oz), and a few other stats.

“DAISY!” This time it was Coulson, screaming in her com link in her ear to get her attention. Daisy ignored it as he went on. “You have three minutes to get out of there - RUN NOW!” Coulson ordered.

Daisy found the automated controls and figured her way through a few steps that took the system through draining the tube and automatically removing the respirator. While it worked, Daisy unzipped and yanked her jacket off over her gauntlets. When the tube opened up, the baby was wet, coated with some of the blue gel that he had been suspended in and flailing uncontrollable limbs as he wailed. She would have known his face anywhere after the way it had been seared into her memory. How was it possible, for this to happen - for him to be here when they had lost him so long ago?

“Daisy-,” May cut off when she heard the baby’s cries over the com links.

“Is that a baby?” Hunter blurted out. Coulson and May exchanged a glance. Coulson moved to dart off but May stopped him, gripping a firm hand down on his forearm.

“There’s not enough time,” She told him, refusing to let go even as her eyes betrayed her and her heart raced in her chest.

Daisy forgot all about her com link and the timer for a moment. “Shhhhh, it’s okay,” her eyes welled as she used the bottom of her tank top to wipe off him off. She quickly wrapped the baby up snugly in her jacket and pulled him up to cradle him into her arms. The tears started before Daisy could stop them. She tared down at him and a beat or maybe two after the baby’s ear was pressed against her chest, Carter abruptly stopped crying and stared up at her from behind his wet cheeks and dark brown eyes. A sob escaped Daisy and it was then that she finally heard Coulson, shouting:

“DAISY YOU HAVE TWO MINUTES!”

Daisy’s heart raced. Two minutes. It wasn’t enough time! She looked down at the baby in her arms and tightened her grip. Turning him in her arms, she held him against the crook of her neck, bracing his head and neck there with her hand and the other holding him to her by his rear. She was running before she had finished re-situating him. “Not again,” she murmured to herself and the baby as she ran. “I won’t lose you again,” She murmured over and over as she ran.

Sweating and moving faster, she was sure, then she ever had in her life, Daisy’s adrenaline was spiking into overdrive. She saw the corridor ahead, with a large hole blown in the wall. The bus was right outside it, the back hanger bay door open as it hovered just off the open hole and half of the team stood there waiting to catch her. The gap was close enough for her to jump it if she could make it through the hole in time. Just as she was about six or so feet away from the exit to freedom, Daisy’s wristwatch began to beep as the timer ran out. The lower levels of the building began to blow in successive concussive blasts.

“DAISY!” Coulson’s running lunge for the building was held back only by May, who had barely had time to grab his arm with one hand and a bracing strap on the floor of the hanger bay door with the other hand to keep him from leaping into a collapsing building. The bus lurched as the pilot pulled them up and away to escape the collapse undamaged. Bobbi and Hunter rushed forward to help pull Coulson back up and into the bus. The four of them stood, horrified, as they stared down into the brown cloud of remains of the building in the wake of its collapse in upon itself, throwing up dust and debris in its wake.


	20. Hourglass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Forewarning:**  
>  Agnes Enhanced Fluffiness Scale: With how long this is, even though I've been told I over estimate, I think this might break the AEFS...plz correct me if I'm wrong!  
> Panyan Enhanced-Fujita Adrenaline Scale: Full disclosure - purposefully shied away from too much actual shield work for this ch to make it mostly family scenes, aside from some specific parts that were mixed in for what I'll call obvious reasons (you'll know when you see!) so goin w/5 for this scale
> 
> EXPLICIT RATING APPLIES FOR BRINGING SEXYBACK!!
> 
> Ch is uber long (46k+). srryntsrry I almost broke it into two chapters but...eh.  
> I am sorry for my typos/errors. I was so close to finishing this and my internet was out when I got home so I waited for it to come back so I could post it for you. I have to be up in 3hrs for work so keep me awake with comments on what you think of this chap or any other or even my hilarious typos!  
> Ch21 is already written so I should be posting it tomorrow afternoon after spell/grammarchecking it
> 
> TY to Panyan for the research tittles! ;oP  
> HAPPY BELATED BDAY to Kate_foreverfan! 
> 
> TY all for reading, kudos, comments & <3!!  
> <3 <3 :o)

_**August 29th 2021** _

“Why can’t Jimmy come play no more?” Lily was asking with a frown as Daisy untied her sneakers and pulled them off while she sat on the closed lid of the toilet in the bathroom, swinging her legs back and forth despite her Mama’s attempts to get those shoes off. Daisy glanced up at her in time to catch the sad pout on her lip as the bottom on protruded out past the top.

Daisy glanced over at Jemma, who was sitting on the edge of the tub, filling it up while testing to make sure the water wasn’t too hot. Both were down to their under things since they knew Lily had a tendency to splash about in the tub. Jemma frowned but only so Daisy could see.

“Arms up, Monkey,” Daisy said after she put Lily’s sneakers by the door to keep them out of the way of the eventual water splashing. Lily kept her feet swinging back and forth slightly, reminding Jemma as she watched, of Daisy whenever she had to sit in a doctor’s office waiting for the doctor to step in, sitting on the examination table, swinging her legs back and forth. Lily lifted her arms up and Daisy reached for the hem of her t-shirt to pull it up and over her head. “Jimmy’s mom and dad are still a little shaken up about what happened in the backyard the other day, sweetheart,” Daisy tossed the dirty t-shirt on to Jemma, who turned and opened the hamper in the room to toss it inside.

Daisy kissed the end of Lily’s nose and scooped her up by her under arms to stand her in front of the toilet. Lily reflexively put her hands on Daisy’s shoulders as Daisy helped her out of her shorts and underwear. “After they have a few days to calm down, hopefully they’ll let Jimmy come back and play,” Daisy offered a reassuring smile, hoping she was right. Jimmy’s father, in particular had not taken the incident well. In fact, he had come knocking on their door the next morning, after hearing the story from his son and wife.

Jemma had been the one to answer the door only to have Jimmy’s father, Nathan, launch on an angry tirade about Daisy using her powers while trying to push his way through the door to find Daisy – presumably to give her a piece of his mind, or his balled up fist. It was something paraphrased along the lines of, _‘You people already force your lifestyle on us – now your wife has the nerve to violate my son with…with whatever the hell it is she does with those…Inhuman mutations!’_  Two sentences before that outburst, with her body blocking the doorway and not budging, Jemma had twice warned Nathan that he was out of line and he needed to stop threatening their family. As he had shouted the last bit, he had made the mistake of shoving Jemma roughly by the shoulder to try and push her back over the threshold. Daisy had just been coming down the stairs when she had seen it and before she could even react, Jemma had balled up a fist, clenched her jaw, reeled back and landed a solid swing that clocked Nathan directly in the mouth.

Daisy had _heard_ the heavy smacking sound of the collision when Jemma’s knuckles had met Nathan’s lips and teeth and she cringed, even now, just thinking about it. Nathan had lurched back and had almost fallen right on his ass from the punch. Jemma had stepped out past the threshold of the front door, yanked the door shut behind her and had yelled at Nathan that if he ever so much as _thought_  about scolding, shaming, threatening, accosting or looking at her wife or daughter the wrong way, she would use her very normal every day homo sapiens powers to feed him his own testicles. She had gone on to lay him out over the fact that he was up in arms that Daisy had saved his son – who had been misbehaving on the play set and not following the rules all the parents had agreed upon for using it - from breaking his neck and becoming paralyzed, or worse, and had scolded up about how he should be knocking on their door to thank them profusely for protecting their boy from harm.

Daisy had seen Jemma in that angry protective mode before, the one where she knew for sure that Jemma meant business and she could, and would, gladly cut a bitch if she had to in order to protect her family. The first time she had witnessed it had been years ago, before the temple and the powers and this long, winding road they had taken together, back when Ward was being transferred from their custody into the government’s custody. Daisy remembered the way Jemma had shifted her weight to block Daisy from Ward’s view as best as she could, as if her mere presence in that spot could stop Daisy from having to feel the pain of being near him. She remembered the way she had instantly reached out when Jemma had protectively moved in front of her to press a hand to Jemma’s back and she remembered the way Jemma had been ever so slightly shaking with fury as she threatened to kill Ward if she ever saw him again. Daisy supposed she was the one who had won that task in the end, though.

Jemma’s voice brought Daisy out of her memories and back to the present. “That’s right,” She told Lily after she turned the water off when the tub was filled to the right height under the layer of bubble bath bubbles. She leaned over and kissed the top of Lily’s head and hooked her under her arms, “Up we go!” She cheered as she scooped Lily off her feet and lowered her into the tub as Daisy tossed the last of the dirty clothes into the hamper. “Anyway, I thought you were mad at Jimmy for picking on you last time he was here?” Jemma asked as she and Daisy settled on the ledge of the tub.

Lily’s eyes narrowed and she pursed her lips, instantly reminding Daisy of Jemma’s ‘I’m mentally weighing my options right now,’ pout, which made Daisy smirk a little. “Ya-huh,” Lily announced with a decisive nod, blushing when Jemma gave her the stern eye for not saying ‘yes’ in lieu of ‘ya-huh.’ “I’m faster,” she added, as if this somehow justified her want for Jimmy to come over to play in the yard.

Daisy chuckled. “You want him to come play because you’re faster than him?” She asked.

Lily nodded as Jemma leaned over to pull her hair from the little ponytail it was in so they could get her started on washing her hair. “Ya-,” Lily glanced at Jemma, who arched her right eyebrow and pursed her lips into a stern line. “Yes, Mama!” Lily amended her statement with a grin. With a splashing wave of displaced water, Lily scrambled to her feet. “He turns into a bull!” She announced, scrunched her face into a squished angry face, balled up her fists and belt her arms to hold them at her sides and then stomped her feet back and forth, huffing and puffing as if she was frustrated and angry.

Daisy threw her head back and laughed, unable to bite it back before it was out. Lily stomped back and forth again and slipped on the last stomp. While Jemma was laughing at the impression, she quickly reached out and caught Lily under her arms to keep her from falling in the tub and hurting herself. Daisy leaned over toward her lap and actually slapped her knee as she laughed. Lily giggled at both of their reactions as Jemma helped her settled back down to sit in the tub.

“So you’ve decided to get revenge for him picking on you…by challenging him and beating him while you’re playing?” Jemma asked as her chuckles wound down. “Close your eyes,” she used the usual oversized cup to scoop up some of the water from the tub and poured it over Lily’s head when she closed her eyes and tipped her head back.

“Yup!” Lily chirped with a wide grin once she opened her eyes again.

Daisy snickered and held her hand out for a high-five. “That’s my girl!” She grinned as Lily swung an enthusiastic hand to high-five her.

“Don’t encourage vengeance,” Jemma admonished, though there was a very small, proud smirk trying to stretch up her lips as she began to lather up Lily’s hair with her shampoo. Daisy mustered up an innocent grin and gave Lily a wink and discreet thumbs up for her devious little efforts.

\---

After Lily’s bath was complete, and the tub was almost done draining, Daisy scooped Lily up out of the tub with her towel wrapped around her. She peppered Lily’s neck, shoulder and cheek with kisses and stood her on the floor mat outside the tub to dry her off and ruffle up her hair while she dried it. She helped Lily into her brand new, extra fluffy bathrobe – which was almost the same color brown as Groot – zipped up the front and both a hood that, when it was raised had monkey ears on it and also had a long tail that hung off the back of it. It was convenient for those times when Lily tried to bolt from the bathroom before she was fully dry but, at the same time, her new favorite let’s-delay-bed-time-as-long-as-possible game was to insist that she didn’t want to get changed into pajamas because her robe was fluffy and comfy.

Jemma began to clean up the toys, rinsing them off under the tub faucet, and straightening up the bathroom as Daisy finished using the towel to dry Lily’s hair. “Are Jimmy’s mummy and daddy mad a-cause of Mama’s shakes?” Her words were broken, both by her own voice and also by a small yawn in the middle of them as she held her hand out the way Daisy often did when she was forcing her powers out through them.

Daisy frowned as she tossed the damp towel onto the top of the hamper. She used her fingers to carefully comb Lily’s hair out of her face. Daisy exchanged a glance with Jemma and turned back to Lily. Lying in this situation wouldn’t be a good idea because kids were brutally honest and Jimmy had a tendency to parrot everything his parents said back to anyone who would listen as if it were proven fact. Daisy could only imagine the things he had said to Lily regarding her and Jemma’s relationship that Lily hadn’t actually repeated to them, considering what Nathan had said to Jemma.

Daisy cleared her throat and pulled Lily to her side, scooping her up with one arm. Lily

hooked her arm around Daisy’s shoulders as she carried Lily the few feet over to the sink. She pulled Lily’s stool out from the space between the sink cabinet and the toilet and set it in front of the sink for her to climb up on. She crouched down next to Lily and turned her daughter to face her. Daisy nodded. “Yeah, they are,” she answered Lily’s question. Lily frowned and dropped her eyes down to her feet. It would have looked adorable in her monkey robe and would have been a picture worthy moment, if Lily hadn’t been frowning the way she was. “But,” Daisy reached her finger out tilted her head slightly to catch Lily’s eyes with her own as she gently urged Lily to look back up at her. “What happened wasn’t anyone’s fault except for mine, okay?” she pressed her lips into a reassuring smile. “I didn’t want Jimmy to get hurt and I reacted, the same as I did that time you climbed up onto the bookshelf in the library when you weren’t supposed to, remember?”

When Daisy had turned into the library and spotted Lily hanging from the top shelf of the floor to ceiling book shelving, her heart had jammed into her throat. Daisy still had no idea how Lily had managed to get out of her playpen and scale the bookshelf in the time it took Daisy to run down the hall to use the bathroom and come back. Before she could even verbally react, Lily had teetered off the edge and Daisy’s hands had flown up and sent out waves of her tremors to break Lily’s fall and keep her from actually crashing into anything. Lily had wound up giggling madly and asking to do it again while Daisy had pulled her in for a crushing hug as her pulse pounded away in the rush of panic and adrenaline that had hit her moments before it.

Lily nodded in answer to the question. Daisy offered her a smile, trying her best to be as reassuring and comforting as possible. She moved her hands up and down the outsides of Lily’s arms. “Well Jimmy’s parents are scared like I was then. They also don’t understand about those special things we can do,” she said. Jemma and Daisy had talked to Lily about her and Daisy’s abilities and had discussed at length with her, letting her ask all the questions she could to make sure she understood that they weren’t a bad thing. They had tried to make her understand that sometimes people were going to think that they were bad and that, even though they weren’t right, they had to be careful to explain that to people rather than getting upset with them.

“It’s going to take them some time to adjust to it,” Daisy said. “But it isn’t your fault,” she paused as she watched Lily try and avoid looking directly at her. Daisy moved and ducked her head to make sure Lily couldn’t look away from her. She kissed the end of Lily’s nose. “Besides that – and this is important, Monkey,” She pressed her forehead to Lily’s and ran her hand along Lily’s back. “Mummy and me, we love you so much…and no matter what anyone ever says to you because they don’t understand or for any other reason, there is nothing wrong with you. You are sweetest, smartest, kindest, most fun-loving little Monkey I know,” she tickled Lily’s side gently and Lily let out a small huff of laughter and burrowed into Daisy’s neck and shoulder. Daisy wrapped her arm around Lily. “We wouldn’t change a thing about you, Lily. You are exactly who you were meant to be,” She leaned back to look at Lily as she said it.

“That’s right,” Jemma agreed when Lily looked her way for confirmation. She walked over and sat down sideways on the closed toilet lid next to where they both were. She leaned over and kissed the side of Lily’s head. “And that now squeaky clean little Monkey needs to comb her hair and brush her teeth so we can pick out a bedtime book!” She widened her eyes as she said it with as much enthusiasm as she could.

Daisy chuckled. “Mummy’s got us there, Kiddo!” she grinned as Jemma stood up and moved to get Lily’s toothbrush set up. “You work on your teeth and I’ll work on the hair – deal?” She asked. Lily nodded and turned to face the sink as Daisy grabbed her comb from the mirrored cabinet. Jemma helped her with brushing her teeth while Daisy combed the loose tangles out of Lily’s hair and combed it out of her face. Soon enough, the three of them were in Lily’s room, having convinced her to change into her pajamas, sitting back against the headboard on either side of Lily, helping her read her way through one of her favorite books, occasionally kissing the top or side of her head or combing their fingers through her hair until she was soundly asleep.

\---

_**September 3rd 2021** _

“I agree that we should absolutely take the appropriate steps to make sure that Lily understands what her abilities are, where they came from and how and when she should use them,” Jemma said, her eyes on Daisy as if they were alone and talking and not sitting in Doctor Rhoads’ office for a therapy session. Jemma spoke freely in these sessions. She understood the doctor was there to help them both and not to judge them. Daisy had had some not so great experiences with ‘head shrinks’ as she often referred to them, though not to their faces obviously, when she was a kid because of the nature of her upbringing. It took her a lot to relax enough that she didn’t hold back on her replies and over think what the doctor might make of her replies. “I just disagree about the methods you have suggested,” Jemma added.

Daisy shifted in her seat next to Jemma and frowned as her brow furrowed. “I don’t understand why you think it would be a bad idea to include the team in her lessons,” She said. “It’s going to be training she’ll need to do from here on out. Making sure she has multiple perspectives and techniques at her disposal to make everything about it second nature is a perfectly reasonable strategy to use in this case,” She reasoned.

Jemma frowned thoughtfully. She had been trying, since the conversation they had had with the team after taking Lily in for some bloodwork and check-ups before her powers had shown themselves. She didn’t want to disagree with Daisy on how to do some specific thing in regards to raising Lily but, for reasons she wasn’t sure she could explain out loud, the idea of started their not almost two year old on ‘training,’ seemed some level of barbaric she couldn’t get her brain past.

“I think in this instance I agree with Daisy,” Doctor Rhoads spoke up. He was very careful to always let them converse with each other and to only interrupt when he thought it seemed most appropriate.

Jemma turned to look at the doctor, blinking blankly at him. Daisy bit back the urge to flash a triumphant smirk. This was not a situation for joking. It was important. Both of them, obviously, felt like they had Lily’s best interests at heart and they needed to find a middle ground and put a plan into action. Daisy knew this. Still, she felt relieved that the doctor agreed with her on this particular subject.

“You do?” Jemma asked.

Doctor Rhoads nodded. “I do, yes. It’s very important for Lily to see others like herself, outside of her immediate family, to be able to observe and learn from them all the different ways they use to cope with the differences they face in life. Daisy’s right that having multiple ways to channel emotions and stimuli and to be able to switch from one to the other at practically instantaneous muscle memory will greatly benefit her, not just where her abilities are concerned but in life’s daily stresses as a whole,” Doctor Rhoads explained his reasoning.

Jemma still frowned and looked down at her lap. “I don’t like the idea of training our two year old to be some kind of super soldier…” She heaved a sigh and looked over at Daisy. “And I hate the fact that I can’t seem to find another way to phrase that outside of my head that won’t sound offensive or won’t make you go on the defensive…”

When Jemma first spoke, Daisy felt her jaw clench and tighten. She immediately wanted to jump on the defensive and tell Jemma she couldn’t believe her wife would think she would want to mold Lily into some kind of super weapon as opposed to simply wanting to protect her and to teach her how to keep herself calm and composed when people like Jimmy’s father, Nathan, got into her face, since they both knew that was bound to happen as she grew up. She bit her tongue and waited; glad she did so after Jemma said that last bit.

Daisy reached over the armrests of both of their chairs and slipped her fingers down Jemma’s forearm until she could slide her hand into Jemma’s and tangled their fingers together. “That’s not what I’m trying to do, Jem,” Daisy said in a soft tone, trying to make sure it didn’t sound accusatory. She just wanted to give Jemma that reassurance.

“She’s just a baby,” Jemma frowned. “She’s not going to understand why we’re putting her through this when none of her other friends are doing it.”

Daisy pressed her lips into a small line and squeezed Jemma’s hand. “At first, you’re right, she might not. That’s what we’re all going to be there for, though, isn’t it? To teach her?” she arched her eyebrows slightly.

Jemma nodded and gripped Daisy’s hand tightly. It was hard for her, sometimes, to be able to think clearly about the complications that stemmed from the Inhuman factor of Lily’s genes. She hated that it was harder for her to understand Lily and Daisy and how it affected them. She hated that she was an outsider, essentially, on this aspect of her family. She felt genuine fear that there would be situations she would be helpless to protect them from. She felt true, deep seeded anger for the fact that utterly ignorant people like Nathan existed in the world and that there was a hard percentage of them that would never stop until all Inhumans were locked away out of sight out of mind if they couldn’t be ‘cured.’

“We’re going to be with her all the way, Jem,” Daisy went on, trying her best to be encouraging. “She’ll learn all about how to use her shield to protect herself. We’ll teach her when it’s appropriate to use it, that it’s only for self-defense, that it isn’t there to just show off and boast about. She’ll learn how to use it without it using up all her energy. It’ll be second nature for her. May will teach her how to stay calm and collected, stoic and cool under pressure when other kids or, heaven forbid, adults who don’t know to fear your mama bear protective side enough to keep well away from messing with her,” Daisy picked Jemma’s hand up and leaned over to kiss the back of it. “Bobbi will turn her into a back flipping, tumbling ninja gymnast. You and Fitz will give her the know-how to understand the science between everything happening to her. Lincoln, Alisha, Joey, me, we’ll all be working with her so she understands the differences between each of our abilities from hers, so she understands what we feel when using them and so she can ask all kinds of her crazy questions,” she smiled. “What’s that saying, it takes a village to raise a kid, right? This is our village. This is what they already do for and with us all the time. We thrive better with them than without. How could it be detrimental to her to surround her with us – the ones who are always there to keep her safe anyhow?” She asked.

Jemma chewed on her lip and nodded as she squeezed Daisy’s hand. She glanced at Doctor Rhoads, who arched his eyebrows curiously to see what her opinion was. With another firm squeeze of Daisy’s hand, Jemma nodded and looked over at her wife. “Alright,” she decided, taking a deep breath. “We’ll go with your plan,” she said.

Daisy shook her head. When a baffled look crossed Jemma’s face, Daisy smiled. “We’ll go with _our_  plan,” she said. “One that incorporates both of our input and ideas and takes Lily’s thoughts into account while she’s going through it,” she said. “So that we’re always on top of changing things, swapping out what doesn’t work for better options…making it up as we go along.”

Jemma was quiet for a moment. She nodded eventually though and even managed a smile, despite her eyes being slightly welled. “I think I like our plan,” she said before Daisy leaned over to kiss her, ignoring the fact that they had an audience in the doctor.

\---

**September 11th 2021**

“This is…”

“Perfect,” Daisy finished Jemma’s sentence. They were seated on the secluded beach together, Daisy seated in the sand behind Jemma, her knees framing Jemma’s hips and her arms wrapped around Jemma, lining her own arms and holding onto her hands. She pressed a few carefully charted kisses along Jemma’s shoulder, the side of her neck and the back jutting edge of her jaw as Jemma exhaled a hum of approval and leaned back into her.

For Jemma’s birthday, Daisy had convinced her that they deserved, at the very least, a short weekend away. She had convinced Jemma into a two night stay in a secluded cabin. She hadn’t told Jemma that it was only a few hours away in the outer banks area of North Carolina. She also hadn’t told Jemma that it was a cabin on its own tiny island, and the closest neighbor was a two mile drive back across the island and over the small bridge that led to one of the smaller town areas. They were completely alone. Lily was spending the weekend with May and Coulson and they would pick her up upon their return on the 13th.

For now, the sun was going down, they had finished dinner and a bottle of wine between them and they were sitting with their feet in the sand, wrapped together, just enjoying...everything. Jemma inhaled a sharp gasp when Daisy’s teeth scraped against the exact spot on her neck that her pulse was thrumming. Her tongue lapped over the spot before her lips covered it over in a soothing kiss.

“If you keep that up…” Jemma let out a shaky exhale.

“You know,” Daisy said between the well placed kisses. “You’re a year older now,” she said gravely. Letting go of one of Jemma’s hands, she pressed her own hand flat to Jemma’s bare stomach, listening to Jemma’s sharp inhale and feeling the way her muscles tensed and jumped beneath her touch. “I think, perhaps…” she planted kissed along particular spots she new would cause reactions out of Jemma. Sure enough s her fingers dipped past the thin waistband of her bikini bottom, slipped the pads of her fingers through the patch of hair then traced down the length of her sex, hot and wet against her skin. Jemma gasped and shuddered in her arms as Daisy nibbled just enough pressure against the back of her jaw. Daisy cupped against Jemma, curling her fingers along her slit with ghost light touches as she moved the heel of her hand, pressing it against Jemma’s clit, caressing against the small kernel of bundled nerves with just enough pressure to leave Jemma’s hips rolling forward in quest for more.  

Jemma’s hand reached over their shoulders and wound into Daisy’s hair. “It’s time to retire to bed…” Daisy sunk her teeth against Jemma’s pulse point just as she was pressing her heel firmly against Jemma when she rolled her hips again. Jemma expelled a sound somewhere between a gasp, a moan and a growl from the back of her throat as her muscles twitched. The heat that had pooled slick between her legs began to wind a tense coil in the pit of her belly.

“What do you think, birthday girl?” Daisy practically purred into her ear teeth nipped against the bottom of Jemma’s earlobe. She grinned at the way Jemma’s mouth hung open, how she forgot how to breathe after few inhales, the way her nails dug into Daisy’s scalp in an attempt to hold on and ground herself and the way Daisy’s fingers were sliding easily along the length of her core, already thoroughly wet with arousal that bathed the digits she slipped briefly into her slit before removing quickly.

Jemma sucked in a labored breath. “Y-yes,” she stammered. A whimper escaped Jemma when Daisy pulled her hand free of her bikini bottom and i morphed into a growl of protest as her arms loosened from Jemma so she could moved to stand up. Jemma felt the absence of Daisy’s touches and kisses immediately and shivered in the wake of their removal from her.

Daisy grinned and offered her hands to Jemma. As soon as Jemma’s hands were in hers (aware of the slick fingers of her hand), Daisy pulled her up to her feet and immediately into her arms to bring their lips crashing together feverishly. Jemma’s arms wrapped around Daisy’s neck and she nearly knocked them over attempting to press herself as tightly to Daisy as she could on their shuffling stumble back up the beach and into the cabin.

Once they were inside the door, Daisy kicked it shut behind them and hooked her fingers into Jemma’s bathing suit bottoms, scraping her nails against Jemma’s hips as she pushed the material down. Jemma groaned against Daisy’s mouth and they stumbled into the frame of the bedroom door as Jemma shuffled and kicked her way out of the material. Her fingers tore at the ties of Daisy’s bikini top and tore it free as soon as the knots had been pulled. Daisy shivered at the rush of air as material was pulled away. She leaned into Jemma a moment later when both of Jemma’s hands tracked up her torso and palmed over her breasts. Jemma eagerly swallowed the moaning gasp that escaped Daisy as they staggered toward the bed. As soon as the back of Daisy’s knees, Jemma pushed her down onto the bed and climbed into her lap, straddled across her hips.

Daisy’s arms landed against the backs of Jemma’s thighs. They drew along the taut muscles, rounded over the curve of her rear and held on, pulling Jemma closer as Jemma’s hips ground down against her. Daisy’s lips and tongue took to the flesh of the front of Jemma’s throat, nipping, sucking and licking a southern path. Her fingers traveled along the smooth curve of Jemma’s hips, up her sides and dragged her nails just under the hem of her bikini top, much lower than she knew Jemma wanted them. Her teeth dragged over Jemma’s collarbone as Jemma pressed against her touches. Rather than pulling the material free, Daisy kissed her way down to Jemma’s left breast over the material. She brought her mouth down over it, dragging her teeth together as she pulled back to graze over her nipple beneath the material before she closed her mouth around it again to suck. The fingers of her right hand traced the orbit of her other nipple until she felt the flesh beneath her bikini top pull taut. She palmed her hand over it and massaged with just the right amount pressure.

Jemma’s arms were wrapped around her shoulders, a hand fisted in her hair and the other’s nails digging into Daisy’s shoulder blade, holding on as her head tipped back and she keened out Daisy’s name breathlessly. Daisy felt the pull in her core as it wound, hot and tight between her hips at each of Jemma’s reactions, at the way she had wound Jemma up enough already that she could feel the soak of fluid as it dripped from Jemma onto the top hem of her own bikini bottoms below her belly button from the position they were in.  

Daisy wrapped her arm around Jemma’s middle. She pulled her mouth away from Jemma’s breast, grinning to herself at the guttural protest that strangled in Jemma’s throat. She pulled Jemma up and rolled them over, crawling back into the bed with her. She kissed her way up Jemma’s throat, calmer, gentle against Jemma’s carnal protests, and hovered above her, her own pupils blown and dilated just as much as Jemma’s. She loved seeing the feral, wanton, almost but not quite unwound expression on Jemma’s face as she panted for air beneath her.

“Wha…?” Jemma asked in a winded murmur. Her fingers traced their way down Daisy’s sides, tips running along the top waistband of her bathing suit bottoms. Daisy’s abs twitched under the teasing touch and she sucked in a deep breath as the pressure built in the pit of her stomach at something so simply as the light, ghost-like graze of Jemma’s fingers.

A smile spread across Daisy’s lips. She shook her head slightly and bent her arms so she could dip her head to catch Jemma’s lips in a kiss. She trailed her way along the underside of her jaw, Daisy’s own breath hitching as Jemma’s practiced fingers found their way only just the borders of the material between her legs, not quite enough pressure but enough touch to make her want more. Her hips shifted and she moved to settled so she was straddled one leg between Jemma’s thighs. She pressed her thigh into Jemma’s center and listened to the sharp inhale and keen it caused from Jemma right against Daisy’s ear.

“I love you,” Daisy whispered against her ears as her hand snaked its way between them until her thumb had easily found the bulb of her clit and began rolling over it with practiced expertise, causing Jemma’s back to arch and hips to snap up toward Daisy as her breath shot out in hot puffs against Daisy’s ear. Jemma’s hand shot out to grab onto Daisy’s hip, steadying herself and pulling Daisy in closer. Her other hand pushed past the barrier of her bathing suit bottoms and cupped against the slick heat between her legs, flexing and dragging in all the right spots that made Daisy’s muscles pulse in time against her actions. “I intend to make you scream,” Daisy’s voice rumbled against Jemma’s ear, “No holding back,” She said before she pulled the bottom of Jemma’s earlobe between her teeth.

Jemma’s hips rocked against Daisy’s thigh. A moan strangled in her throat as her hand moved from Daisy’s hip to wrap around her neck, burying her fingers into Daisy’s hair. “D-do your worst…” She panted out the challenge, hungry for the reckless abandon afforded them by the seclusion of their location.

Daisy needed no further encouragement than that. Though she was reluctant to have to pull herself away from Jemma’s attentive touch, she nipped and and sucked her way down the length of Jemma’s torso, taking her good old time, stopping to pay particular attention across the expanse of her chest as Jemma did what she could vocally, and physically, to urge Daisy down her body, to stop teasing her and focus on the engorged heat between her hips  that ached for attention. Daisy’s hands made it there first, passing down her hips with gentle caresses along the outsides of her thighs,lightly scratching their way up her inner thighs from knee to apex, causing Jemma’s legs to push open farther as her hips snapped upward again.

“Daisy…” Her name was a plea on Jemma’s tongue. Daisy pressed her fingers along Jemma’s things, tracing the border of her groin where thigh met hip, applying just the right amounts of pressure to just the right spots that made Jemma writhe about and cry out as she added her teeth to drag across the flat expanse just below Jemma’s navel but above where the patch of hair leading to her core began. She reveled in the way Jemma’s body lost control of all sense, muscles tensing and twitching in the wake of Daisy’s touch, nails digging into Daisy’s scalp and shoulder, heels digging into the mattress, hips lifting clear up off the mattress for purchase.

Daisy fingers slipped along the soaked seam of her folds as her lips finally began to pull against the outer edges of her folds. Jemma flexed involuntarily and pressed Daisy face closer to her, where she needed her. She heard a loud strangled plea and let her eyes take in the sight as she looked up the length of Jemma’s heaving torso. Her pupils wide and her mouth hung open as she gasped for some sense of control over her own breathing to no avail. A smirked tipped up Daisy’s lips and she slipped her tongue along Jemma’s center from bottom up to the hood. Jemma bucked into her with a loud cry and Daisy pressed her tongue between the folds of the hood of her sex, flattening the end of it against her clit before she brought her lips down over the surrounding flesh and sucked against it. She gave into Jemma’s cry fo more and pressed first a single digit inside her, curling in just a particular angle against the spongy flesh of her inner wall as Jemma’s muscles pulled against her, bucking down to grind against the digit.

 

Daisy let her eyes feast on the sight of Jemma writhing around the mattress as she pressed  second digit inside. She released Jemma’s clit from her mouth and Jemma let out a wail of protest until a third finger slipped inside her and stole her breath away. Jemma’s head lifted from the mattress to look down the bed at Daisy, hand still fisted in her wife’s hair. Daisy let her tongue kiss around the outer areas of Jemma’s core as her fingers flexed and curled, thrusting easily in and out of the slick olds, pushing in as far as they could on each thrust, bending to drag along Jemma’s inner walls, spreading out to stretch the space within.

Jemma’s eyes widened as she recognized this routine. It wasn’t often, after Lily had reached a certain overly mobile age, that they had a chance to break out their toys since they were always working against the alarm clock that was their daughter and had limited decibel levels they could work each other to without waking the kid. Daisy wasn’t just teasing her and driving her wild. She was prepping her. Unintelligible syllables rolled off Jemma’s tongue. She gasped and just when Daisy knew she was going to attempt to talk, she surged forward, wrapping her lips and tongue around Jemma’s engorged clit and thrusting her spaced and curled fingers harder and faster against that one spot that wound the pressure in bellow Jemma’s into a rigid coil. With a final thrust of her hand, a swipe of her tongue and a hum of encouragement, Daisy did something she rarely ever did - she let just the faintest of tremors shake through the fingers Jemma was already grinding against.

Jemma’s muscles hung suspended for barely a second before she crashed forcefully over the edge into bliss. Daisy’s ears actually rang for a moment as Jemma called out her name in a howl of guttural moans. Her hips snapped uncontrollably against Daisy’s mouth, her muscles pulsed against Daisy’s fingers, pulling them in and milking against the digits in rolling waves as Jemma held onto Daisy’s head for dear life. Daisy’s mouth and fingers worked, thrusting in time and lapping up the bursts of fluid until Jemma’s muscles gave out, collapsing her back onto the mattress in a spent, trembling heap of breathless hums. Daisy carefully pulled her fingers free from Jemma and Jemma exhaled a whimper upon their absence. Jemma was rendered momentarily immobile, a gasping body of shuddering muscles and sinew. She saw stars in her vision when she forced her eyelids to crack open and felt the heavy pull when they tried to close right away again.

There was a triumphant smirk on Daisy’s face that Jemma would have wanted to wipe off of her face if she wasn’t so busy trying to calm her trembling muscles and catch her breath. Daisy kissed a gentle path back up Jemma’s side and came to rest half on her side, half on top of Jemma. Her fingers traced placid trails over every inch of flesh Daisy could slide them against as she pecked airy light kisses around Jemma’s face. Before she could speak, before she could think coherently or see anything but stars, Jemma’s eyes closed and her body reflexively sought out its place, curled into Daisy’s arms, pressed into the crook of her collar before she was pulled into unconsciousness by the blissful unwinding Daisy had delivered.

Daisy managed to pull the covers up around them. She stayed tangled and curled around Jemma, stroking her fingers through Jemma’s hair, over her back and along her arm, against her side, swirling around her hip, tracing along her jaw. She kissed Jemma’s temple and earlobe, and murmured quiet endearments against her ear.

When Jemma opened her eyes and inhaled a sharp breath as she came back to herself, she was greeting by the surrounding warmth of being tucked inside Daisy’s arms, feeling perfectly content and sated despite her exhausted and currently jellified muscles. Jemma exhaled a hum and leaned back just enough to see Daisy, her head propped up on her hand, elbow propped on the pillow and a triumphant shit eating grin on her face.

“Welcome back,” Daisy teased, letting her smile spread wider, exposing more of her teeth. “Thought I might’ve lost you there a minute…” She gently pushed some stray strands of hair out of Jemma’s face and behind her ear as Jemma’s face flushed pink with embarrassment.

“Did I-,”

“Come so hard you passed out?” Daisy arched her eyebrows and chuckled when Jemma’s cheeks and ears flushed again. “I believe you did, yes,” She kissed the end of Jemma’s now and ran her fingers along Jemma’s pink flushed cheek.

Jemma closed her eyes and leaned into the touch as she reached up to curl her fingers around the outside of Daisy’s hands. Her eyes popped open suddenly and Daisy gave her a curious look as she realized Jemma’s pupils were expanding again. “You brought the toy box…” she said, remembering the prep work Daisy’s fingers had begun before Jemma had crashed and passed out.

Daisy’s arched eyebrows fell and blended into the hungry, wolfish expression that matched the predatory gaze in her eyes. “I told you…” Daisy leaned in to pulled Jemma’s lips against hers in a painfully light kiss. “I intend to make you scream…” She fixed Jemma with a wicked grin.

Jemma felt the silent issued challenge pull within her gut. She closed the distance between them and crushed their mouths together in a greedy kiss at the same time, she threw her weight and managed to throw her leg over Daisy to straddle her hips. “Who says you get to do all the heavy lifting?” Jemma challenged, pulling back from the kiss just barely enough that their her lips still grazed Daisy’s as she spoke, enjoying the way Daisy’s eyes darkened with desire as her pupils blew wide. She was suddenly glad Daisy had convinced her into staying going away for two nights since she knew for sure now that the would need tomorrow to recover their strength after tonight.

\---

**_October 2nd 2021_ **

Even though Jemma and Daisy were fairly overprotective of Lily, knowing what they knew about the world and the potential for dangerous situations she could find herself in, the two had agreed on a few specific things regarding raising their daughter. They wanted her to be able to be independent as she grew up. If there were things she insisted she could do for herself, they would let her try, even if they were close by to help if something went wrong. Obviously that excluded anything that could be terribly dangerous in some way. It also meant letting her play on her own, inside or out, without interruption unless she was in danger or doing something she wasn’t supposed to. It didn’t mean they weren’t around to supervise her, obviously, but if she wanted to play on the back yard playset by herself when no other kids were around, Jemma or Daisy would sit nearby at the patio in the backyard which had a round table with chairs around it. This way they would be close if needed but off out of the way so Lily could play how she wanted.

Obviously they wanted her to get along with other kids and even adults as well, but that never seemed to be a problem for Lily as she was rather adept at socializing. She also had a decent set of gut instincts, when something didn’t feel right to her, lily had a tendency to back away from the situation, or to seek out whatever familiar adult was with her to get a good read on a situation. Even when Lily was surrounded by the neighborhood kids who had come to play in the Johnson-Simmons backyard, she managed to keep everyone getting along and diffused situations often in broken kid speech or in often comically amusing ways with her antics.

Jemma knew she was biased in thinking that her daughter was simply an amazing little person but she couldn’t help it. Lily was farther ahead in her speech, comprehension and reasoning skills than kids her age. She observed things before speaking about them. She listened when people asked for her attention and spoke to her (although this was very touch and go if she had ingested too much sugar-laden junk food at any given time). She could be singing songs from any one of her favorite kids movies one moment while dancing around the living room and in the next something profound – at least for an almost two year old – before changes course and going right back to whatever she was singing, playing or coloring.

And so, on this particularly gorgeous sunny and cloudless day, Jemma and Lily had ventured to the park so that Lily could play with other kids on the playground. For a little while, Jemma hovered near the playground equipment, just making sure Lily could get to the things she wanted to play with and making sure she didn’t fall off any monkey bars or anything of the sort. Lily loved climbing things and swinging from things. When Daisy was pregnant with Lily, they had joked about how she kicked so much that she was bound to wind up a soccer(Or, “Football, for those of us who are cultured and have class!” as Jemma would tease her every time she said the word) player. Now they joked around that she would be a natural gymnast if given the chance. Jemma found Lily’s penchant for climbing terrifying. Climbing meant the possibility of falling from varying heights, which could lead to any number of injuries.

Realistically, Jemma knew that playground bumps and scrapes and general injuries were normal of any childhood. It didn’t stop her from worrying about it, though. Daisy was much better at pretending she wasn’t worried about it while internally panicking. Currently, Jemma was sitting on the end of a bench nearby the playground equipment with her travel mug of tea, watching as Lily and the other children ran about playing any number of games while giggling and squealing away with glee. She couldn’t help but smile every now and then at the kids and their games and antics. She was pulled into conversations with other parents who were sitting along the bench or in the grass near it, taking breaks while their kids played. She checked her watch to give herself an idea of how long they had until Daisy was scheduled to come meet them.

Jemma glanced over at the playground just as Lily was making her way over toward the large jungle gym dome. It’s base was about ten feet across and it rose in a spider web of welded, brightly painted metal to six or so feet off the ground. It was the one playground monstrosity that Jemma loathed. Daisy had let Lily climb on it a few times, but only after she had slipped inside of it so that she could catch any falling Lily Monkeys and it had only been after a group of kids had cleared off of it after what had looked like a rather violent game of king of the castle in which the kid who made it to the top of the jungle gym dome proceeded to push, punch, kick and shove any other kids trying to climb their way to the top.

Jemma tuned out of the conversation the parents were having, though she was vaguely aware that they were discussing the politics surrounding Inhumans versus humans and all manner of rights and legislation each thought were appropriate that had been in an endless tug of war for the last number of years. Jemma had wanted to be a silent part of this conversation so she could listen to what kinds of people were surrounding her at the moment, but she uncrossed her legs where they had been on knee over the other and stood up in preparation of marching over to the jungle gym.

Lily’s approached to the monstrosity was slow. There were almost eight kids playing on it, all of them older and bigger than Lily. One particular boy had made it to the top of the jungle gym and had declared himself king of the castle. Jemma could just make out the things he was shouting as he told the other kids they had to leave his jungle gym. Lily didn’t seem to be listening. She was standing at the edge of the jungle gym, looking upwards, her head moving back and forth slightly as she sized up the route she would take when she eventually decided to start climbing.

One of the other parents asked Jemma what was wrong but she was already taking a few tentative steps toward her daughter and the jungle gym. Jemma wasn’t sure if this was one of those situations where she should let Lily explore on her own or if she should intervene. She watched her daughter carefully. Lily seemed almost oblivious to the other kids as they were being knocked off the jungle gym on the other side of the dome from her while the boy on top cheered every time he sent someone flying. Some landed, laughed and began another ascent. Some landed, cried and began to make their way over to their respective parent, holding a wrist or hand as if injured – and Jemma knew some of them truly were from the ways they landed. She cringed every time she watched the boy shove at another child and wondered why the parents were ignoring this scene and not doing anything.

Jemma had made it about halfway to the jungle gym when Lily finally decided on a climbing strategy. She started to scale the dome, keeping a tight hold of the bars as she moved her feet to climb. Even from the distance Jemma was at, she could see the intense look of concentration and determination on her daughter’s face. She waited with each foot placement, until she was sure she was securely on the next space before she would let go to move her hands. Jemma slowed her pace as she watched, not wanting to scold Lily for climbing while also very much wanting to go and scoop her right up off of the jungle gym. Under and around the jungle gym was a thick coating of sand so that when kids fell (or, in some of those cases, were thrown) off the jungle gym, the sand helped break their fall. Even so, Jemma would prefer Lily didn’t go crashing into anything from any height. A fall at any one wrong angle could be rather disastrous.

Jemma was about twenty feet away when a boy who looked to be maybe four or so, had made it to the top behind the king of the castle boy at the top. The king of the castle spun around and without so much as a second thought, planted the bottom of his shoe in the climber’s chest and shoved him. The climber was so startled by the suddenness of the action, it was almost as if he wasn’t holding on at all. He sailed backward, almost directly over top of where Lily was climbing.

“Lily!” Jemma shouted her name as she dropped her mug from and started running for the jungle gym. The parents by the bench and the surrounding areas of the playground within hearing distance of her shout stopped what they were doing to see what was going on.

Lily looked up first instead of over toward her Mummy and saw the body heading right for her under the force of gravity. She could have just jumped in through the hole of the jungle gym she was hanging over to dodge the incoming danger. Instead, she pushed with her feet and jumped right toward the boy’s falling back. Jemma watched, horrified as Lily’s arms wrapped as far as they could around the boy. Both were falling now, but Lily and most of the boy’s upper body, including his head were now covered in Lily’s bright violet shielding as they crashed down into the sand, sending up grain waves of the material in all directions in their wake. All the kids on the jungle gym stopped with a collective gasp.

Parents were having similar reactions around the playground area. Jemma might have gasped if she wasn’t so focused on physically reaching Lily and the boy in the sand. Everything happened in a matter of second. Jemma landed in the sand next to both children on her knees. Lily was halfway under the boy, who seemed dazed from the shock of the sudden fall and then opening his eyes to the purple light of the shield. Jemma reached for both of them.

“Are you okay?” She asked as she reached out first to help the boy up since he was on top of her daughter. She glanced from the boy to Lily, who had silent tear streaks heading down her cheeks. The boy nodded numbly and just stood where Jemma had placed him. She pulled Lily up to her feet. “Lily, are you hurt?” she asked, one hand prodding at Lily’s shoulders, arms and sides, looking for injury while the other rested on the boy's shoulder, waiting for his parent to come check on him. Lily shook her head. She wasn’t hurt but she was scared. Jemma pulled Lily over to her with one arm and kissed the side of her head. The instant Lily was in Jemma’s arms and she had kissed her, the shield receded from around her. Jemma looked over at the boy, holding a hand to the side of his head and checked his eyes and face for signs that he might be in pain or might have suffered any injuries. “Are you alright?” she asked again with genuine concern for his well-being.

“Hey!” A man’s voice interrupted Jemma’s attempts to get the boy to speak and tell her if he was alright. The man rushed towards them, panic on his face. “Don’t touch him!” He shouted.

Jemma instantly let go of the boy and put the hand she had had on his shoulder up in the air in surrender to show it visibly to the man, who she assumed was the boy’s father.

“You keep your freak hands away from my kid, lady!” The man grabbed the boy’s arm and pulled him roughly behind him to put himself between Jemma and the boy as Jemma moved to stand up.

Jemma blinked and stared at him. “Wha –,”

“I saw what your little freak offspring did! Don’t think I missed it!” The man shouted.

Jemma was so startled by the reaction the man was having that she was struck speechless for a moment. “Are…are you mental?” She asked suddenly when she found her voice. “She only did it to protect him!” Jemma’s brow furrowed. She understood that people sometimes feared people with ‘special powers,’ hell Jemma had been one of them in the direct aftermath of the temple and what had happened to Trip, but the man’s knee-jerk reaction that her daughter was 1) a freak of some kind, 2) had done something wrong and 3) had done so with some kind of malicious intent made her hackles rise. “That little cack kicked your son off the top of jungle gym!” She pointed the hand she had raised up toward the gawking boy at the top of the jungle gym. “You want someone to take your misplaced rage out on, find his bloody parents!” She glared at the man.

The shouting made Lily bury her face into Jemma’s neck. She murmured an apology to her mummy and held onto her. Jemma adjusted her grip on Lily and brought her hand down on Lily’s back to rub it reassuringly. “It’s okay, sweetheart – it was very nice of you to make sure this little boy didn’t hurt himself,” she said before she sent a glare to the man in front of her. She moved to walk around him back toward her fallen mug so she could take lily away from the very public spectacle this was becoming.

“Hey! You can’t just leave!” The man reached out for Jemma’s arm, the one that wasn’t supporting Lily’s weight and wrapped his hand around her bicep. “What did your freak do to my kid? I want your information – you can bet your ass you’ll be hearing from my lawyer if she turns my kind into some kind of –,”

“Throw another insult, make another threat and continue to physically accost my wife and daughter and your surviving relatives will have to be the ones to sic your lawyer on me,” Daisy, who had arrived at the playground in time to catch part of the fall and the aftermath from afar (though there was no mistaking the glow of that shield, even from far away), had seen the man’s reaction to everything and had already been jogging her way over by the time he had grabbed Jemma.

Startled by the intrusion into his chest-puffing show of dominance, the man turned to look at the intruder over his shoulder. Jemma took the opportunity as the man sized Daisy up, to unceremoniously yank her arm free from his grasp. She stepped away quickly since she had Lily in her arms and made no bones about moving to let Daisy remain between them and the man, though she stuck close to Daisy’s back.

The man advanced like he was going to shove past Daisy and get to Jemma. Daisy’s only movement was to lift her hand up so it was level with the middle of the man’s sternum. He stopped just barely an inch away from her palm. He was much taller than both Jemma and Daisy but Daisy’s head only inclined so she could stare the man down eye to eye.

“I don’t want any trouble, I have no problem with you,” Daisy spoke loudly so that the people watching (and possibly filming) would be able to hear what she was saying. “But if you continue to try and _physically_ _attack_  my family, I _will_  defend and protect them.” She spoke in the same loud volume, clearly and slowly enough to give the man a chance to walk away.

The man huffed out a laugh at Daisy. “You don’t scare me,” He murmured through tightly ground teeth. As he said it, he bared down on her, leaning over her and letting his chest press against her hand as he tried to intimidate her with his size.

Daisy didn’t move a single muscle other than the one that let her raise her right eyebrow up. “Who do you think my daughter inherited her abilities from?” She asked him so only he would be able to hear. She tipped just the right side of her lips up in a challenging half smirk. She was internally panicking about this situation since she didn’t know exactly what happened, just knew that some stranger had grabbed Jemma while she was carrying their daughter after an incident involving Lily’s powers.

The comment made the man back up a step or two. He glared at Daisy and then finally turned to his son. “We’re going home,” He said as he grabbed the boy’s hand and began to lead him away in the other direction, practically throwing his own adult temper tantrum as he went.

Daisy waited until he was far out of sight before she exhaled a small sigh of relief as her shoulders relaxed. She turned around and looked at Jemma. Lily was wrapped around her torso, legs around her waist, arms around her shoulders and face buried into the side of Jemma’s neck and hair. She had the telltale post-cry hiccups as Jemma rubbed her back gently. “You okay?” Daisy mouthed out to her so Lily wouldn’t have to hear the question. Jemma nodded, though she definitely looked rattled.

“Hey, Monkey,” Daisy put a smile on her face and pressed her hand to Lily’s back, landing it partially over Jemma’s hand as well. She stepped next to them and wrapped her other arm around Jemma’s middle. She ducked her head to kiss Lily’s shoulder. “Were you playing superhero without me?” she asked in a teasing tone, reaching to move her hand so she could very lightly wiggle her fingers against Lily’s side.

Lily squirmed in Jemma’s grasp. “Nooooo,” she shook her head. “M’sorry…” she sniffled.

Daisy frowned and glanced at Jemma, who had been frowning for quite some time already. She had also noticed the people still gawking at them. Daisy nodded and leaned in to kiss Jemma’s temple. “Hey, why don’t we get out of her, huh? Go get some pizza for dinner. What do you think?” She asked, both of them moving now, shifting. Jemma leaned toward Daisy and Daisy hoisted Lily up and into her arms. She bounced Lily lightly at her hip and smiled at her. “I missed you today,” She grinned, trying to distract Lily from being upset. “Do I at least get a kiss hello?” She asked turning her cheek a little more toward Lily.

Lily leaned in and kissed Daisy’s cheek before leaning to burrow into her shoulder. “Hi Mama,” she murmured.

“Hello my little Monkey,” Daisy said as she followed in step with Jemma to gather her fallen mug. She took the lead then on their walk toward the park’s small parking lot. “Were you scaring Mummy with all your climbing again?” She tickled her side again and gave Lily a wide grin to make sure the little girl knew she was joking.

Lily frowned and dropped her head onto Daisy’s shoulder again. “M’sorry,” Lily repeated miserably into her shoulder.

“Hey,” Daisy adjusted her grip to bounce Lily a bit as they reached the car. She pulled Lily around and sat her down on roof of the car over top of the passenger door. She kept her arms around the outsides of Lily’s legs as she stood in front of her and leaned her arms on the car. Jemma stepped up next to her. Both were trying to smile reassuringly at their daughter. “Why do you keep saying that?” Daisy asked as she reached up to gently swipe off the half-dried tear streaks from Lily’s cheek with her hand.

Lily glanced back toward the playground and then looked at her moms with a sad frown. “Not a-posta use bubble,” Lily murmured as she aimed her frown at her lap. It was hard not to smile whenever Lily’s shield was referred to as her ‘bubble,’ a term Bobbi had used for it once during their first day taking Lily into the base to talk with and work on training with Lily. Lily had taken to the term easily since it was more relatable to her than ‘shield’ at her age.

Daisy felt her heart squeezing into painful spasms as it usually did when Lily was upset about something. The fact that she was upset about the powers made Daisy feel immensely guilty since she wouldn’t have them if it wasn’t for her. She squeezed Lily’s leg gently and shook her head but Jemma spoke first.

“Except in emergencies to protect yourself,” Jemma smiled at Lily, putting her hand on the leg opposite the one Daisy held. Lily looked over at her and Jemma smiled brightly at her. “Which is exactly what you did,” Jemma assured their daughter. “ _And_  you saved that little boy, too,” she said with a proud smile on her face.

Daisy grinned. “That’s my girl,” she cheered. Lily still looked unsure about the situation. “Lily, did you use it on purpose?” Daisy asked curiously, wondering if it was something Lily made a choice to do as opposed to it happening as a reaction. So far, Lily hadn’t been able to conjure up the violet purple sphere at will, it had only happened as a reactionary measure. This had led them to a lot of games of dodgeball with foam balls that Lily had found endlessly entertaining.

Lily bit her bottom lip as if she might be afraid to answer because she wasn’t sure how they would react. After a moment, Lily nodded her head a few times.

“You did?!” Daisy asked with extra enthusiasm than was needed, arching her eyebrows.

“Not only did she do that,” Jemma said, “When that boy was falling, instead of just jumping out of the way, Lily purposefully jumped _with_ _him_  to keep him from landing and hurting himself,” She explained.

Daisy pushed her grin broader as she looked at Jemma and listened to the story. Her eyebrows arched higher and she turned her Cheshire sized grin to her daughter, who was now blushing bashfully as Daisy gasped. She held her hands up for Lily for a double high five. “Our little Monkey’s a regular hero!” She cheered. Lily hesitated and then reached up with a small shy smile to slap both of Daisy’s hands. Daisy chuckled and pulled her from the roof into her arms for a big bear hug. She pressed kisses to her neck, shoulder and head. “That deserves some pizza and arcade games for celebration purposes, right Mummy?” She looked over at Jemma. Lily was nodding now.

“Mmmmm, I don’t knowwwww…” Jemma let the words draw out in a singsong tone, as if she was thinking about it but wasn’t completely convinced.

Daisy put on an exaggerated pout. She glanced at Lily and nodded toward Jemma and almost instantly, Lily mimicked the pout and puppy eyes. Jemma instantly wanted to throw her arms around them when they turned their deadly weapon on her. “Alright! Alright! Pizza and arcade games!”

“WOOOOO!” Daisy cheered, pumping a fist in the air, glad Lily seemed to be a bit more relaxed about what had happened now. They could discuss it in more serious detail later, while also talking to her again about how people reacted, why people reacted the way they did and why Lily should never put herself in direct danger, once they were home from dinner. Right now, Daisy knew Lily was too upset about what happened to process a serious talk about it. She needed reassuring that what she had done was good, that she wasn’t in any kind of trouble, that she and Jemma were proud of her reaction and that they loved her. Jemma pulled the back door open and Daisy kissed Lily’s cheek and passed her to Jemma so Jemma could get her set up in the back in her car seat while she went and climbed into the driver’s seat before she started the car up.

\---

_**October 10 2021** _

Daisy was sitting along the outside edge of the training room. Lily was in the middle of the floor of training mats, bouncing excitedly on her toes. She had a big grin plastered on her face and occasionally she giggled. Her bubble went up and came down at seemingly random times as nerf balls whizzed around her. Bobbi, May, Hunter and Jemma were standing around at randomly spaced places around Lily tossing the balls in her direction. The goal was for Lily to recognize when a ‘threat’ (aka a nerf or light bouncy ball) was coming directly for her so she could spring the bubble into place so the ball bounced off of it. Alternatively, if she caught it faster than that, she could tumble, jump, duck or dodge the item. So far this had been Lily’s favorite of the training games. They kept the training options as entertaining and fun as they could while still focusing on making sure Lily learned from them. They weren’t all physical games either; some were mental, work on tools to help her keep calm in a panic-y situation.

“She seems to be enjoying herself,” Coulson spoke loud enough for Daisy to hear but not so loud that it would disrupt the game in the middle of the floor. He sat down next to Daisy on the floor and pulled his knees up.

Daisy smiled. She caught a stray ball and rolled it back toward Jemma’s pile of them to add to her ammo. “She’s having a lot of fun with it,” She agreed with a nod.

“Looks like the rest of them are too,” He nodded to the scene, watching as all of them tried to keep a straight face amidst Lily’s wild triumphant cackles whenever she dodged a ball or whenever the bubble came up just in time at her own will. Sometimes the bubble went up on its own reflexively. Every so often when there was a lull in nerf balls sailing through the air, one of them would shout, ‘Bubble!’ from a different direction that Lily was facing to see if they could get her to bring up her shield. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. The look of concentration that crossed Lily’s face whenever it didn’t work immediately was both adorable and hilarious in her determination.

Daisy grinned again. “She tends to bring that out in them, yeah,” She agreed with a nod.

“But there’s something that’s making you tense about it still?” Coulson asked without looking away from the scene before him, which he was smiling just a bit at.

Daisy looked over at him, wondering how he still managed to do that to her when she thought she was projecting a perfectly calm and normal demeanor about herself. She shook her head slightly and turned it to look back at Lily as she whirled around and ran back and forth. Her mad dashes left her careening for May, who had just thrown a ball her way. Because she didn’t have time to pick up another, she reached out and caught Lily before they collided and pulled her up into her arms as she stooped over, covering her red, sweaty little face with, her neck and shoulder in kisses and blown raspberries that made Lily squeal as she squirmed to try and break free while the others laughed.

“I know Jem doesn’t think so,” Daisy said to Coulson. “But I worry a lot about how starting this with her so early will affect her. Is she too young for us to train her? Will it warp her somehow? I don’t,” A thoughtful frown crossed her face as May set Lily free and she went racing away around the mat again like a little bolt of boundless energy. “I don’t want her to be a warrior at two,” She said. “I want her to be a kid.” Daisy exhaled a sigh to calm the way talking about this made her insides twist. “A happy, healthy, carefree kid,” She murmured. She wanted Lily to have the kind of childhood she didn’t get to have. Daisy knew that was a typical parent kind of thing to want, but it was important to her that Lily didn’t have to live through the things that she had had to survive.

Coulson was silent for a while as he looked over at Daisy. She squirmed in her spot under his gaze and wondered how long she should wait before she became concerned by his silence. “Look at her,” Coulson said softly when he finally did speak. He nodded toward the group and Daisy turned in time to spot Lily making a mad dash right between Bobbi’s legs to escape an assault of nerf balls, like something out of a freaking cartoon. “Does that look like a kid who’s missing out on her childhood somehow?” he asked.

Daisy didn’t have time to answer because as soon as she made it through Bobbi’s legs, Lily let out a squeal and careened around the group right for Daisy and Coulson.

“MAMA HEEEEELLLLPP!” She shouted through a round of her cackling laughter. Daisy had time to open her arms and brace her back before Lily collided with her.

“INCOMIIIING!” Hunter shouted as a volley of nerf balls came flying their way.

“Oh nooooo, Lilly – BUBBLE!” Daisy called as she wrapped her arms around Lilly and pulled her into her lap. Lily’s violet shield appeared a second or two after Daisy shouted it and with the way she was hunched over, it cover her head, shoulders and parts of her arms rather than just covering Lily. The various nerf balls and light bouncy balls ricocheted off the shield and bounced back across the mats. “My hero!” Daisy cried with a chuckle and a kiss attack to the crook of Lily’s neck as she swayed heavily back and forth with Lily in her arms as if she hadn’t just been in a serious conversation with Coulson about her worries.

\---

_**October 31st 2021** _

As a kid, Daisy never really had the chance to dress up and go trick or treating for Halloween. The years she was in the orphanage over Halloween meant the nuns decried the sacrilege of such things (although Sister McKenna did hide candy for each of the kids the years she was there so that the other nuns didn’t know) and she had only ever been in one foster home over the holiday. She tried not to think about the three months she had spent with the Millers. Ever.

Jemma hadn’t been too familiar with the Halloween customs revolving around trick or treating outside of what she had seen in films and on television. She found it rather off putting, especially so the mischief night festivities that could precede the holiday. When they had first bought their house, it hadn’t crossed her mind that Jemma wouldn’t have direct knowledge, experience with Halloween that wasn’t, strictly, revolving around the academy and teenage costume parties in the boiler room at the academy. Admittedly, Daisy wound up finding it hilarious that Jemma spent most of their first mischief night circling the house and peeking out through the blinds, looking for hooligans with toilet paper or rotten eggs. She had been comically horrified when Daisy had regaled her with stories of what she and Miles had done to a particular foster care social worker who had been rather ruthless with their placements of kids just for the sake of getting them placed in a home for their own benefit when their supervisor looked at their statistics. Daisy and Miles had not been kind, that was for sure – but she insisted it was warranted since the woman had callously placed kids in homes without properly background checking them which led to quite a bit of abuse. She hadn’t exactly said that she had been placed in one of those homes, but she was sure Jemma had inferred it.

It wasn’t until Daisy insisted that next night, that Jemma sit out on the porch with her to hand out candy to the kids that came around that Jemma decided Halloween wasn’t all that terrible since the kids were adorable. Some of the older ones that came around later in the night were a bit rowdy, but by then, Daisy had taken to hiding around the corner of the porch with a super soaker water gun having set out a bowl of candy pieces with a sign to take _one_. Any time someone tried to take more than one they got blasted…..by the super soaker that was filled with warm water colored yellow with food dye to make them think it was pee. Jemma had barely held it together every time Daisy had cackled with glee as teens ran away freaking out.

Because she was so little, last year Daisy and Jemma had sat on the porch with Lily and handed out candy again, handing out candy again to all manner of little ghouls, goblins, zombies, vampires, princesses and so on. Daisy had dressed Lily in an adorable little monkey costume and she had crawled her way all around the porch with them, babbling nonsense and giggling or imitating any monkey sounds Daisy made in her direction. Daisy was sure this was what had won Jemma over for being on board with this whole Halloween thing.

This year, Lily had spent three weeks hyper and excited any time the holiday was mentioned. Daisy had introduced her to the magic of _The Nightmare Before Christmas_  and there was no end to how many times in a single day Lily could march around singing _This is Halloween_. It had taken a good long week of discussions to decide on their costumes. The three of them were dressed as different toys from the Island of Misfit toys from _Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindee_ r. Jemma was dressed as the spotted elephant in a hilarious and adorable one-piece white long sleeved and footed zip up pair of pajamas that had been carefully colored with large pink polka dot spots. She had attached a tail to the back of it and had made herself a headband with matching spotted elephant ears. Her face was painted white with the pink circles scattered over it, and she had constructed her own tusk, which was held over her nose by a thin string that stretched around her head to keep it in place. Daisy honestly almost couldn’t handle how adorable she looked and had maybe taken an absurd amount of photos of her.

Daisy was dressed as Dolly, who was her favorite of the misfit toys because when you looked at her, it was almost impossible to tell why she was on the island of misfit toys since she seemed like a perfectly normal doll. It wasn’t until she was older that she had read a news article from one of the producers or directors of the special that explained that Dolly was on the Island of misfit toys because of her low self-esteem issues and psychological problems, which led her to the island since she believe she feels she’s unlovable. Daisy could relate to those feelings, at least up to a certain point in her life. Jemma may have taken a decent amount of her own pictures of Daisy in her costume but the two of them took even more of Lily in hers – as the Charlie in the Box!

Lily’s costume had her hair brushed back and a clown hat the top on, complete with a red Christmas hat, her nose painted in a red dot, extra rosy pink cheeks painted to her cheeks, a jester’s outfit with fuzzy little puff balls down the front of it. Daisy and Jemma had spent hours putting together a homemade box out of poster board so it would be light enough for her to cart around with her. They equipped it with a set of suspenders for while she was walking. It had a top that hinged shut and a working crank handle too on the side. At each house, Lily would wait for groups of kids in front of them to clear out before she would dash up to the front door of a given house and crouch down until her box was on the ground. Daisy or Jemma could close the top for her and hit the doorbell or knock. Most of the people who opened the door happily obliged the turning of the crank handle a few times before Lily popped up from it.

If Jemma had had any remaining reservations about Halloween, they had been erased completely by their daughter’s immense glee and enjoyment of the tradition. They walked their way all over the neighborhood, though there were a few particular houses they avoided because of fallout from the playset and the playground incidents. Thankfully, Lily didn’t pay much mind to their house skip overs. They spent about two hours trailing around the neighborhood starting right when the sun was going down. By the time they had started their walk back home, Lily was seated on Daisy’s shoulders – a Charlie in the box currently absent of her box! – legs too tired to carry her for the (at least for Lily) long walk back home through the neighborhood. Her arms were wrapped around the top part of Daisy’s head, hands plastered to her forehead. Daisy held the bottom of one of her legs with one hand and carried the old pillowcase that was stuffed full of her candy haul for the evening. Jemma walked in time next to Daisy with Lily’s box from her costume in her arms.

“Hey, Monkey,” Daisy said during one of the breaks in Lily’s excited rambles about the night, retelling all the stories of the reactions people had to her jack (CHARLIE) in the box performances even though Jemma and Daisy had witnessed (and recorded) them. She turned her head upward and Lily looked down at her Mama curiously. "Did you know this was Mummy's first time Trick or Treating, too?" Daisy widened her eyes and made an exaggerated shocked face as she said it.

Lily gasped and snapped her head to look over at Jemma. Jemma chuckled and nodded. "It was!" She grinned. Her eyes turned to Daisy, who was grinning affectionately at her. "If I'm not mistaken," she looked back up at Lily and said, "It was Mama’s first time Trick or Treating as well!"

Lily gasped again, looking back and forth between them, almost scandalized by the news.

Daisy smiled. "Technically, you are correct," she confirmed.

Jemma’s smile stretched across her face and brightened at the confirmation. She liked the idea of all three of them experiencing this together for the first time. "What did we think of our first try at it?" Jemma aimed the question at Lily, who practically vibrated with excitement in her spot on Daisy's shoulders.

"WE GOTS CANDY!!!" She cheered as Daisy chuckled at her enthusiasm.

"Yeah, I think we made a pretty big haul," Daisy held the pillow case up as she said it.

Jemma grinned as her chuckles died out. "Candy and fun," she confirmed. "We just may have to do this again next year," she said. Daisy joined in the round of happy cheers Lily let out just to make them go on longer.

When they got home, Daisy dumped the pillowcase out on the living room floor and told Lily not to touch any of it until she said so while Jemma went to grab a large bowl. She sat across from Daisy and cleared a space in the middle of the pilot for the bowl. She and Daisy made their way through the pile, checking that there were no unwrapped loose pieces of candy or any with deformed wrappers. Every so often while Lily nearly raced anxious circles around them, they gave her a small piece of candy to eat.

By the time they were finished and Daisy took the discard pile to the trash and found somewhere to hide the large stash of candy that Lily couldn't reach, the little girl was still racing around the living room excitedly repeating all the stories from the night and Jemma was laughing as Lily made passes by her every so often or stopped in front of her to wildly gesticulate while telling a story.

"Okay, who's ready for bath time?!" Daisy cheered as she joined them. Lily passed just close enough for Daisy to lean over and swoop her up into her arms, wrapping her arms around her and tilting her over so she was on her side, launching into her usual multi-kiss attack as Lily shrieked in glee and tried to wiggle free.

\---

**_November 24th 2021_ **

The Johnson-Simmons abode was drowning in chaos and despite the lack of structure, Jemma couldn't have been happier about it. Daisy, Coulson, Hunter and Alisha were working on ensuring their Thanksgiving meal finished cooking properly, on time and tasty, dancing around each other in the kitchen and squabbling through laughter every so often. Jemma’s grandmother Lillian, her parents, plus her brother, sister in law and their kids, Alastair and Olivia, we're visiting for the holiday. Lily and Alastair were currently running about in the backyard on the playset with Bobbi and Arthur chasing them about. Jemma was holding four month old Olivia, Alastair and Alice’s second child after having insisted that Mack stop hogging her and hand her over while Fitz and May were talking with the elder Mr. and Mrs. Simmons.

The house was crowded, and half of the people present weren’t exactly people who normally celebrated ‘Thanksgiving,’ for obvious reasons, but Jemma was happy. She was glad Daisy had convinced her family to make the visit they were on, especially as work had kept them from being able to make a trip over to visit them after Olivia had been born. Now almost everyone that encompassed their ‘family,’ biological or otherwise, were filling up Daisy and Jemma’s house with laughter and happy smiles. There were no disasters, at the moment, to handle and sort through. There was only normalcy – a group of people, friends and family, gathering together to celebrate a holiday.

Jemma had spent the week reminding Daisy that this holiday was barbaric if one thought about it really, but she had mostly been joking when her mind wondered. She was thankful for all of the people in her life and the sacrifices they made for her that she would make for them in a heartbeat without a second thought as well. There was a warmth and safety to having them gathered together that set Jemma’s mind at ease and gave her a reprieve from even just the everyday struggle of problems.

“Dinner’s ready!” Coulson called out as he carried a large tray of carved up turkey toward the dining room where extra tables and chairs had been set up to stretch from one end to the other and into the kitchen to fit everyone. Jemma handed Olivia back over to Alice so she could set her up in her carrier to keep her close and situated for the meal. Jemma had gone then to call out back to Bobbi, Arthur, Alastair and Lily that I was dinner time. The kids came racing back and Jemma had just enough time to turn to the side for them to run past without bowling her over as she chuckled. Alastair and Bobbi were close behind, laughter still bubbling out of them as they headed for the dining room.

Daisy hung up her apron as everyone carried the last of the dishes to the dining room table. “Anyone need a drink?” she called out. Everyone seemed set to go. Daisy felt relieved that the cooking was over. She turned to look at everyone gathering around the dining room table as they started getting situated, passing plates around and scooping food onto them while they all talked about different things. Jemma walked around the island counter and sidled up behind Daisy.

Daisy grinned when the familiar set of arms slipped around her waist. Her arms came to rest over top of Jemma’s arms on her waist and curled her hands around her wife’s. Jemma kissed the back of her shoulder and then brought her chin to rest on top of Daisy’s shoulder. “Hope you’re ready to eat turkey for at least a week,” Daisy murmured with a fond little smile on her face as she leaned the side of her head against Jemma’s and relaxed to lean back into her wife’s embrace.

Jemma chuckled. “You think between Hunter, Mack, Arthur, Lincoln and my father that we stand a chance of having _leftovers_?” she joked.

Daisy chuckled. She leaned back a bit more and turned her head to kiss Jemma’s temple. “Honestly, I’d rather have dessert leftovers than dinner ones…” She said.

“Mmmm…” Jemma closed her eyes and sighed. “Pie.”

Daisy laughed. She kissed Jemma’s temple and reluctantly broke from the embrace. “C’mon, let’s go stuff our faces,” she grinned and turned just in time for Lily to come running up to them. Daisy hooked her under her arms and hoisted her up into her arms and brought her to rest at her side. Jemma leaned in and clobbered Lily’s face in a string of kisses that made the little girl giggle.

“Did you work up an appetite making Uncle Art and Aunt Bobbi chase you about, Monkey?” Daisy asked with a soppy grin on her face as they made their way toward the long stretch of table and chairs so they could settle in. Lily nodded as Daisy sat down and settled Lily in her lap and Jemma pulled up the last chair next to them. It wasn’t until everyone had filled up their plates that Coulson initiated the tradition of passing around the table and letting everyone offer up what they were thankful for, that Jemma really had a chance to fully appreciate the full scope of love surrounding their family. She squeezed her hand around the one of Daisy’s she was holding as Daisy was turning her head down to kiss the top of Lily’s.

\--

“You’re quiet tonight,” Daisy spoke the words quietly before Jemma felt a kiss pressed into the back of her shoulder. With a full house of her parents sleeping in their room, Arthur and Alice sharing one of the Queen beds in the guest room, Lilian using the other and Olivia was with them, sleeping in Lily’s old padded playpen and Lily and Alastair bunking together in Lily’s room, Jemma and Daisy were curled up together on the sofa pull out. “Is this a content quiet, an exhausted one or an upset one?”

Jemma closed her eyes and inhaled a small breath when Daisy’s lips absently pressed a light kiss to the back edge of her jaw, just behind her ear. She snuggled back closer to Daisy and squeezed her hand under their pillows. “A combination of the first two,” she answered and felt Daisy smiling against the side of her neck.

“Halloween down, Thanksgiving in the books…” Daisy curled her arm tighter around Jemma’s middle and let her hand rest curled between the mattress and the hip Jemma had against it. “Next you’re going to want to go all out for July Fourth as a bona fide red-blooded American,” she teased.

Jemma let out a quiet gasp, part of it was jokingly scandalized and the other was because Daisy’s fingers had slipped along the curve of her lips. “ _Hush your mouth!_ ” Jemma joked back in a whisper, turning her head slightly to angle her face toward Daisy over her shoulder. “My parents are upstairs. They’ll be crushed if they hear you referring to me as some kind of Rebel riffraff,” she smirked.

Daisy chuckled. She lifted her head and leaned over to kiss Jemma. “I love you even though you’re a loyalist,” She grinned and swallowed the snort of laughter Jemma let out in another kiss before she settled back into place behind Jemma, planting small chaste kisses along her shoulder and the back of her neck.

“Do you ever think about how lucky we really are?” Jemma whispered into the comfortable silence that had befallen them.

Daisy paused, her lips still pressed to the back of Jemma’s shoulder where she had just laid a kiss. She turned her head up slightly to free her mouth to speak. “All the time,” she answered earnestly.

“I knew we were,” Jemma spoke again, after a moment of quiet contemplation. “I just don’t think I realized quite how lucky we were, until tonight,” She confessed. A lot of terrible things had happened to them on their journey and she knew there would be trials and tribulations to endure in the future, but Jemma had never been sure until today that their luck really did outweigh trouble’s penchant for finding them.

Daisy’s hand squeezed hers and the other one curled firmer around Jemma’s hip. She turned her head and kissed the side of Jemma’s. “I love you,” she said to showcase her agreement with Jemma’s observation. Jemma smiled. She turned her head to kiss Daisy once more and echoed the words back to her before letting them settle in completely for the night to drift off.

\---

**_December 13 2021_ **

May and Coulson, unsurprisingly, were the first to show up for Lily’s birthday party, even before the neighbors and their kids had arrived. They claimed it was because the wanted to help set up and cook for the party – whatever needed to be done. It didn’t take Lily very long to talk May into building a massive pillow for in the living room for the kids to be able to use when they eventually showed up. So May moved the coffee table out of the way and she and Lily wandered the house for all the pillows and blankets they could gather.

Eventually, the living room was one massive pillow/blanket fort that make a path people could walk through while the kids would still be able to play. May was going to go help the adults with more set up since dinner and the party were still another hour or so away, but Lily insisted that May stay and play with her since it was her birthday, so that meant she got to decide who played with her. May couldn’t argue with that logic, nor would she when it was coming from little Lily.

“We gotsa defend the fort!” Lily declared once they were set up, Lily with her baby blanket as a cape, both of them wearing knit caps Lily had insisted may grab from the winter glove/hat/scarf box from the coat closet by the door as their helmets. Long plastic light sabers, May’s purple and Lily’s blue, that were extended, acted as their current weapons of choice for defending the fort against intruders.

“Defend the fort?” May asked, fighting off a chuckle and a smile. Lily nodded repeatedly. “Who are we defending the fort against?”

“Intubers!” Lily shouted in reply.

May arched her eyebrows slightly. Just as she was opening her mouth to ask what they meant to try and figure out what word Lily actually meant, Coulson came through the living room with a bowl of pretzels in his hand. He stooped into the entrance of the fort with the bowl in hand. “Any of you soldiers order some snac-,”

“HALT, INTUBERRRRRRR!” Lily howled, swinging her lightsaber wildly as she raced the few steps across the fort to Coulson before May could catch her. She caught Coulson first in the throat and then in the gut. He doubled over and wound up on his side after dropping the bowl of pretzels.

May’s eyes widened comically. She fought off another laugh as Coulson threw his hands up in surrender, realizing now that Lily had meant, ‘ _intruders._ ’ “Lily, no!” May managed to shout before Coulson could be dealt a death blow while Lily was imitating light saber sounds every time she swung the toy around.

Lily stopped, keeping the light saber raised as high as she could, ready to strike. “He’s a intuber!!” She declared, scandalized.

“Papa’s an ally not an enemy " _intruder_ ,” May said, unable to hold back a chuckle as she moved over to Lily, crawling on her knees. She brought the light saber down and placed a hand on her back.

Coulson peeked open one eye to see if he was still in danger of being struck. “Permission to collect my fallen pretzel comrades, Commander Lily?” He asked Lily in his official soldier tone.

Lily narrowed her eyes slightly as she considered this. She glanced at May and May gave her a single, firm nod. Lily relaxed her stance and used her hand to push the colored end of the lightsaber back into its toy base. “Pursisses granted,” Lily declared, bungling the pronunciation completely. She gave Coulson a nod and dropped her hands to her sides as May finally lost it as Coulson moved with extra caution to collect the spilled pretzels into the bowl and let the laughter bubble out of her throat.

“Traitor,” Coulson mutter at her, but he smirked a bit as he said it.

\--

“Did she cry this time when it was finally her turn to talk to Santa?” Coulson and Jemma were in the kitchen, refilling some of the snack trays that had been depleted. Coulson tossed a grape in his mouth from the tray he was making.

“Oh!” Jemma chuckled, “I forgot to send you the picture,” She grinned and finished with the tray in front of her. She wiped her hands clean on a kitchen towel and then pulled her phone from her pocket. Lily’s first visit with Santa, last year, had been a bit of a disaster, in that she had taken one look up at the man in the Santa suit and had proceeded to instantly start bawling her eyes out and wailing. Jemma swiped her way to the picture on the phone. “The line took so long, she fell asleep,” Jemma leaned over to show Coulson the picture. “The man playing Santa came up with this idea, told us not to wake her,” She chuckled again.

Coulson leaned over to look at the photo and, predictably since it involved Lily, his face contorted into an affectionate expression as he smiled and let out a small chuckle. In the photo, both Lily and Santa were asleep, posed in the chair with an open story book resting on Santa’s lap in his hand and with Groot tucked into Lily’s arm since she had been holding him at the time. “Well that’s much better than wailing in Santa’s face,” Coulson said, a beaming little smile on his face as he spoke.

“She woke up after that and immediately began babbling at him,” Jemma grinned and swiped to another photo of Lily, gesticulating while she was midway through talking with the man in the Santa suit, who avidly listening.

“Did she tell you what she asked for?” Coulson asked, still grinning about the pictures as he tossed a cracker and piece of cheese into his mouth this time.

“She wants Elvis to have kittens,” Jemma snickered as she tucked her phone into her back pocket and started on filling up the last of the trays.

Coulson laughed. “Is that why Daisy was sending you all those texts of shelter kittens?”

Jemma rolled her eyes and exhaled a sigh at the end of a snort of laughter. “She hopped right on the opportunity Lily presented – I sense a conspiracy afoot,” She smirked and shook her head. “Luckily, mall Santa talked her out of animals since ‘they don’t travel well in the cold air on his sleigh,’” Jemma dropped her voice to imitate the man’s Santa voice. Coulson threw his head back and laughed at the imitation and conspiracy suspicion.

“So now I just have to talk Daisy out of another cat,” Jemma shook her head but was still grinning all the same as they gathered the trays to bring them out into the living room and the dining room.

\--

“For _me_??” Lily’s eyes were wide as Fitz crouched in front of her with a small wrapped up package. The two-year-old’s birthday party was in full swing when Fitz had arrived and Lily was full of energy as usual. Daisy had actually had to hoist the little girl up and over her shoulder to keep her from running off again, so she could carry her toward the front room so Fitz could give her present to her. Daisy chuckled as she combed her fingers through the wild mess of her daughter’s hair that resulted from running around and then being upside down.

“Yes,” Fitz chuckled as he held the box up in his hand for her to unwrap. “It’s just for you – open it.” He smiled.

Lily stuck her tongue out through the corner of her mouth as she moved to started tearing the wrapping paper free. Once the box was unwrapped, Fitz helped Lily pry the lid free, revealing a gold necklace chain with a small pendant at the end of it that was shaped like a monkey that looked almost identical to Lily’s favorite stuffed animal. “IT’S GROOT!” Lily shrieked, eyes wide with glee and disbelief.

Fitz and Daisy chuckled at her response. “Yes,” Fitz nodded as he pulled the necklace from its box. “Just like Groot, but this monkey is extra special,” he said as Daisy took the box and wrapping paper from him to get it out of the way. Fitz reached out hooked an arm around her to pull her over to his side. He held the pendant up and turned it over to see the back of monkey. “His tail is a switch,” he told Lily, who was looking back and forth between the necklace and Fitz as he spoke. If you flip it from one side to the other,” Something Fitz had made a bit harder than necessary just to make sure it didn’t accidentally go off, “It will send a message to all of our phones, your mums and all, May, Coulson, Bobbi, hunter, mine, Mack,” He said, “to let us know that you’re in trouble. It will tell us where you are too,” he smiled as Lily ran her little fingers over the pendant.

“Why don’t you try it, Lily?” Daisy asked since Fitz had told her and the others about the necklace ahead of time so they would know to expect a test run. “So we can see what it does?” she arched her eyebrows.

Lily looked from her Mama over to Fitz, unsure until Fitz grinned and nodded. Lily stuck her tongue to the corner of her lips again in concentration and reached out to flip the tail from right to left. Daisy’s and Fitz’s phones both immediately started ringing and buzzing with an alert. Lily’s eyes widened. Daisy laughed and pulled her phone out, showing the message to Lily that said where she was and said she was in danger. As Fitz flipped the switch back to its reset position, he turned Lily around so he could hook the necklace around her neck.

“What do we say, Monkey?” Daisy asked.

When Fitz finished with the clasp, Lily turned around and launched herself at him in a hug. “THANKSUNCLEFITZ!” Lily shouted all in a rushed word.

Fitz chuckled and hugged her. “Happy birthday, Lily,” he said just before Casey, Lily’s best friend from the neighborhood, came running to collect Lily for the game she was missing.

\--

“Now there’s a picture perfect moment,” Bobbi said as she nudged Daisy. Daisy arched her eyebrows and Bobbi nodded toward the stools that were at the island counter in the kitchen as she was placing some plates and silverware into the dishwasher.

Daisy handed her a few more rinsed off plates for the dishwasher and looked over her shoulder to the island counter. Sitting next to each other on the stools, May and Coulson had Lily with them. Lily was seated in Coulson’s lap, swinging her legs as he kept her from falling out of the stool. A plate with a large slice of cake on it sat in front of them. While they talked, May worked the fork for the cake. She cut a forkful for herself. Afterward, she cut a smaller bite for Lily. Daisy grinned as she watched them both, animatedly talking with her daughter, all of them grinning and laughing. Coulson managed to lean over and swoop in to steal a bite or two of cake aimed for Lily, just to make her laugh and insist that he was stealing her birthday cake. Daisy couldn’t resist grabbing a few pictures; glad Bobbi brought it to her attention while they were cleaning up from the main party.

“At what point do you think they’re actually going to cave and confess that they’re shacking up?” Daisy mused as she put her phone away and turned back to the task at hand.

Bobbi laughed as she took the bowl Daisy handed her and stowed it in the dishwasher. “Probably not until someone catches them going at it on Coulson’s desk,” She quipped.

Daisy laughed, “Think you might be right there,” she replied.

\--

“Bet you never thought you’d be a grandpa without actually having any kids, huh?” Daisy asked. After the party had dwindled to the usual group of May, Coulson, Fitz, Bobbi, Hunter and Mack, they party had moved out into the backyard. The group was seated around the large fire pit. Daisy had gone in to get a drink and had spotted Coulson sitting a bit further off than the others around the fire, just watching them all with a small smile on his face. She had poured a second small glass of scotch and when she returned, she held it out to him and asked the question. Around the other side of the fire, Lily saw in May’s lap, who was sitting next to Jemma and they were both helping her make S’mores, which was doing nothing to wane Lily’s sugar high. Bobbi and Hunter were sitting huddled together in a chair next to Jemma, where Bobbi was, very maturely, occasionally roasting her own marshmallows to eat. Mack was seated next to them and Fitz was on May’s other side. They were avidly talking, every now and then erupting into laughter.

Coulson smiled as a peel of group laughter erupted from around the campfire again. He looked up and smiled broader as he took the glass Daisy held out for him. “It certainly never crossed my mind until the day you asked me,” He confessed as Daisy settled into the chair to his left. She crossed one leg over the other and settled her glass in her lap with her hands.

Daisy smiled over the crackling fire at the rest of the family settled on the other side, almost chuckling when she spotted Lily with melted chocolate splotches on her chin and cheeks while she tried to lick chocolate and marshmallow mess off of her fingers. Moments like this, when they were altogether, in a mess of conversations that lead every which way and nowhere all at once, that left Lily a sugar-hyper bundle of energy that would require major bath time scrubbing later, these kinds of moments made her heart swell. The people here with her real family; the one thing no one could take away from her, metaphorically speaking at least. They were hers and no matter what they went through, she was finally at a point in her life when she knew that was true without needing to test it.

“Did you ever think you’d find your real family?” Coulson asked after watching Daisy observe the others for a little while. He lifted his glass to take a sip as Daisy looked over at him.

For a few contemplative moments, she was quiet. She looked back across the fire at the others and finally settled on Jemma and Lily just as Lily was pushing the roasted marshmallow covered end of her roasting stick toward Jemma’s mouth. Jemma was laughing at part of it struck the end of her nose and she had just enough time to open her mouth to bite the marshmallow as she grabbed the stick to keep it from advancing any farther. She was laughing as she chewed the gooey mess and Lily reached up to wipe the marshmallow off her nose only to get smudges of chocolate on it. Jemma pulled Lily in around her middle and nuzzled her face into the crook of Lily’s neck and her cheek to jokingly wipe the marshmallow smudge off against her as Lily squealed and tried to squirm away.

“Never,” Daisy shook her head. But now she had them. She had all of them. So long as she was breathing, Daisy would do everything within her power to keep them safe and happy.

Coulson held his glass up in toast. “To family?” He offered with a small smile.

Daisy looked back over at him, glanced at his glass and then turned her eyes to his face. She smiled, “To family,” she confirmed and lifted her glass to lightly tap them together with a clink. Each of them took a small sip of their drinks and then settled back in to watch some more of the scenes around the fire play out before them.

\--

When Lily’s sugar rush had started to wane, Daisy, had volunteered to take her up for her bath and to get her into her pajamas so Jemma could stay with the others at the fire. Lily gave Jemma a chocolate covered kiss on the cheek from Daisy’s arms before Daisy had carried Lily inside and up to the second floor bathroom. Lily sat in her usual spot on the closed toilet seat while Daisy waited for the water to hit the right temperature for her to stop up the drain and pour some of Lily’s bubble bath into the tub. Behind her on the toilet tank top, Elvis laid keeping watch and occasionally joining their conversation with a meow or two.

“Mama?” Lily asked as she absently swung her feet while she waited.

“Yes, baby?” Daisy asked as she plugged up the drain and then dumped a capful of Mr. bubble into the bottom of the tub. She reached in with her hand to get the suds forming under the running water.

“Do I gots a daddy?” Lily asked, a curious lilt to her tone.

Daisy was wholly unprepared for the question. She froze a moment and tried to tell herself not to panic. She and Jemma had tried to talk about this possible question a few times, but they didn’t think it would come up for another few years at least. She turned the taps off when the tub was full of hot (but obviously not scalding) water and bubbles. With a deep breath she turned back to Lily and grabbed the bottom of her sweater at her sides. “What made you ask that?” she asked to stall and give herself some time for thought. “Arms up, Monkey,” she added. Lily thrust her arms up in the air, stretching her fingers straight up.

Daisy pulled the sweater and its undershirt up and over Lily’s head as Lily tugged her arms free. Daisy tossed the shirts to the hamper and pulled Lily’s shoes and socks off.

“Jimmy,” Lily answered.

Daisy arched her eyebrows. “Jimmy?” She pulled Lily up from the toilet and stood her up in front of it. Lily put her hands on Daisy’s shoulders and nodded as Daisy helped her out of the rest of her clothes. “What did Jimmy say?”

“He said I gotsa have a daddy,” Lily answered, her words slightly garbled by a yawn.

“Oh he did, huh?” Daisy asked. Lily nodded as Daisy scooped her up to put her into the tub. Lily sat down in her spot right away to settle into the warm water. Daisy dunked a rag into the water and then rang it out. “C’mere,” she put one hand on the side of Lily’s face and neck to hold her still. “Close your lips,” She pressed her lips together in a tight line to show Lily what to do and waited for her daughter to mimic the action before she reached out to clean all the marshmallow and chocolate still left on Lily’s mouth, cheeks, chin and nose.

“Jimmy says you gotsa have a mummy and a daddy,” Lily said when Daisy was done cleaning her face. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes in preparation of having water poured over it as usual.

“Well you, my little Monkey, have something even better - a mummy and a mama,” Daisy replied with a smile. She leaned over and kissed Lily’s forehead before she began to lather up Lily’s hair with her shampoo, aware of the fact that Lily was watching her very carefully now. It seemed Lily was trying to consider this answer and what to say next while she absently floated one of her toy boats in the water in front of her.

“I don’t gotsa have one?” Lily asked.

Daisy knew that explaining how Jemma and Daisy had conceived and had Lily when she was older would make it easier for her to understand. She wasn’t sure what Lily would think of it when she was so young. Daisy gave Lily a reassuring smile. She shook her head. “Tilt your head back,” She instructed when she was done with the shampoo. Lily leaned her head back and closer her eyes. Daisy used the oversized cup they left in Lily’s bathroom to scoop up some water to start rinsing the shampoo from Lily’s hair.

When she was finished with that she settled her hands against Lily’s cheeks and leaned over to kiss her forehead. “You don’t have to have a daddy, no,” she answered. “Families can have a lot of different types of parents. Some have a mummy and daddy, some have a mummy and a mama, some have a daddy and a daddy – some even have just a mummy or just a daddy,” _Some don’t have either,_  Daisy thought to herself, but she wasn’t going to say that. “Jimmy thinks you have to have a mummy and a daddy because he has a mummy and a daddy,” She pointed out as she worked on getting Lily’s bath loofa lathered up in soap to finish her bath. “So he thinks that every family has to be like his. That’s not true, but sometimes parents don’t know that’s what their kids think so they can correct it,” she smiled. “Understand?”

Lily considered it for a minute and then nodded. She seemed relieved by this information. “I like havin’ a mummy an’ a mama,” she decided with another nod.

Daisy smiled and kissed her forehead again. “I love you, kid,” she grinned and held her hand out to help Lily stand up in the water so they could finish her bath. After her bath was finished and Daisy had helped her with brushing her teeth and combing her hair, she carried Lily to her bedroom to change her from her monkey robe into her footed pajamas. She tucked Lily in with Groot and then let Lily pick out a book for them to read.

“Did you have a fun birthday?” Daisy asked as she settled on the bed next to Lily so she was sitting against the headboard.

Lily snuggled into her side as Daisy wrapped her arm around Lily’s shoulders to settle with her so she could hold the picture book with both of her hands in front of the two of them. Lily yawned as she nodded, the motion ending with a slight squeak of a sound.

Daisy smiled. She leaned down and kissed the top of Lily’s head. “Good. Happy birthday, Lily,” she added.

“Love you, mama,” Lily murmured sleepily as she snuggled closer to Daisy’s side.

Daisy’s grin stretched further across her face. It was hard to believe it had already been two years with Lily. It had felt like it had been much longer while, at the same time, it seemed like the years had flown by quicker than she’d thought they would. It was hard to imagine a time for them before Lily, even, at this point. “I love you too, sweetheart,” she said. She cleared her throat a moment later and started in on reading Lily’s favorite book (especially so when Daisy read it because she loved Daisy’s attempts to imitate the different voices similar to the way they sounded on the cartoon special the John-Simmons family watched every year), _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_.

Lily was asleep by the time Daisy had gotten just over halfway through the book, but Daisy read to the end just in case. She closed the book and set it down on the nightstand before she looked down at her daughter snuggled up against her side, breathing evenly, peacefully sleeping. She stayed there, combing her fingers gently through Lily’s hair and just taking in the moment. Eventually, she carefully shifted Lily to keep from waking her and tucked her in the way she liked. She lingered in the doorway, watching Lily in her bed for a few more moments, reluctant to leave. She heard someone approaching but didn’t look over her shoulder since she assumed it was probably Jemma.

“It’s hard to believe the sugar actually wore off,” It was May who had joined her, stepping up to lean on the other door frame opposite Daisy. There was a small smirk on her face as she whispered the comment.

Daisy snickered. “Even when it’s not sugar-induced, I’m always surprised when her energy finally wanes into sleep,” she said.

“Ahhh, youth,” May sighed, letting the right corner of her mouth turn upward.

Daisy smiled as she looked into the room, dimly lit by the nightlight on the light switch by the door. “She asked me if she had a dad today,” She looked over at May. May quirked her right eyebrow up slightly. “Jimmy, the boy that fell off the playset out back a few months ago?” She waited for May to nod and then went on. “Told her she had to have a mummy and a daddy,” Daisy crossed her arms loosely over herself as she leaned in the doorframe.

“What did you tell her?” May followed Daisy’s gaze into the room.

“I told her she had a mummy and a mama and that was better,” Daisy answered. “And then told her families had all different parent combinations.” She shrugged her shoulders slightly.

“It’ll be easier for her to understand when she’s older…” She wondered if Lily would resent them when she was older for not having a normal set of parents, even though Jemma and Daisy were her biological parents. Otherwise, would Art count as her ‘father’ since he’d helped them out with a donation in order to have sperm to work with all the complicated genetics? It wasn’t as if those cells hadn’t been tweaked to include Jemma’s DNA anyhow. It was a lot to take in and it would be a number of years, probably, before it was something they could reasonably explain to Lily without confusing or upsetting her. Daisy chewed her bottom lip lightly as she thought about it.

“She’s a smart kid,” May pointed out, sensing that Daisy was worried this would be a problem much sooner than she anticipated. “She’ll be able to easily comprehend that, whether conventional or not, she has two parents who love her unconditionally, to raise her and that they’ll always protect her and will always be in her corner any time she needs them.”

Daisy exhaled a shaky breath at the reassurance as May reached out to squeeze her arm. Even though she did her best not to show it whenever she could, Daisy knew she would always worry that there would come a day when she let her daughter down in some catastrophic way, like her own parents had. “After what happened in the backyard over the summer, and then at playground…I just…” Daisy wasn’t sure how to explain her fears, not about how Lily would be perceived either because of Daisy’s powers or Lily’s so much as the way people would choose to treat her after they knew.

“You just are a normal parent who worries about her daughter and doesn’t want her treated differently than anyone else in the world?” May supplied with an arch of her eyebrows. Daisy pursed her lips into a thin line and nodded since May’s comments more or less summarized it she supposed. She wanted to insist that it was different from other parents because of the Inhuman factor but it wasn’t as if Daisy and Jemma were the only parents with Inhuman children. Most of those parents, however, only had children with discovered powers because of accidental exposure to the mist. Daisy and Jemma were exceptions there, possibly as a result of the way in which they had gone about conceiving through laboratory process for obvious reasons. May stepped closer and reached out to pull her into a hug.

“You’re both doing everything the way you should be,” May assured her. “Any one of us would overstep the boundaries to point out if you weren’t,” She reasoned. It was true and Daisy let out a small huff of laughter as May led her toward the stairs, keep an arm around her back. Daisy was grateful for that; it wasn’t something she thought was a nuisance. Family told you like it was, whether it hurt your feelings to hear it or not they were there to have your back and knock some sense into you when you needed it.

Daisy leaned into May’s side as they walked down the hall, grateful for the embrace and reassuring support. “Thanks Nǎinai,” Daisy said, using the name that Lily used for May. May just smiled and squeezed her shoulders. She turned and kissed the side of Daisy’s head silently before they headed down the steps and separated as they joined the others, coming in from outside after putting the fire pit out.

\---

**_December 24 2021_ **

“I don’t think that goes there, Jem,” Daisy said as she and Jemma were attempting to assemble a bike. They were tucked away in the dining room since it would give them more time to hide their present assembling if Lily tried to come downstairs – which she had been trying to do over the last two hours since Daisy and Jemma had first tucked her in for bed. Daisy had the instructions in her hands and was looking up and down from them to the bike frame and back.

“It has to go there, though,” Jemma tilted furrowed her brow and bit lightly into her bottom lip.

“It doesn’t like up here though,” Daisy held the instructions out toward Jemma and pointed. Jemma craned her neck to look at the directions without letting go of the frame and screwdriver in her hands. Her hair fell over her shoulder and Daisy’s nose caught the scent of her shampoo with the slight gust of air that came with it. “I think I know what the problem is,” Daisy announced with a sly little smile.

When she didn’t say anything else, Jemma looked over at her. Before she could ask what she meant, Daisy leaned across the small gap between them and brought their lips together in a lingering kiss, letting them pull against Jemma’s even as she let out a squeak of surprise before her brain caught up to what was happening and her lips responded in time. Daisy smiled against the kiss as a low hum escaped from the back of Jemma’s throat.

“And what was that for?” Jemma licked her lips once the kiss was sacrificed in favor of air.

Daisy beamed a grin her way. “I need a reason?” she asked. Jemma chuckled and Daisy set the instructions down. She reached out for the little bike frame and Jemma released it only to have Daisy turn it so the piece she had at the bottom was now at the top. “Now it should work,” Daisy grinned again and gave her a cute little wink.

Jemma blinked and looked at the frame and then noticed the connection spot the other piece fit into. “Genius,” she breathed out a laugh and leaned over, pressing a hand to Daisy’s cheek and pulling her in for another round of kisses.

The sound of two specific back to back creaky floorboards on the stairs alerted them that Lily was trying to be sneaky and make it downstairs again. Daisy was closest to that direction. She quickly pulled away from the kiss and jogged through the kitchen and into the hall that led to the foyer and stairs. Skidding to a stop at the bottom of the stairs in her socks, she looked up and spotted Lily, her face frozen in wide-eyed ‘oh no, I’m caught!’ shock, she was halfway down the stairs, holding onto the railing. Daisy moved to put her hands on her hips and arched her eyebrows up.

“I HAD A BAD DREAM MAMA!” Lily squeaked.

Daisy had to bite the inside of her cheek not to laugh at the attempt to throw her off, especially since she could just barely make out the muffled snickers Jemma was trying to stifle from the dining room. She dropped her jaw and let out an exaggerated gasp. “Are you going to fib your way onto Santa’s naughty list at the last minute before he arrives?!”

Lily’s eyebrows shot as far up her forehead as they would go. “ _NOOOOOOOO!!!_ ” She shook her head repeatedly and then turned around on the stairs and started to scale them, climbing with her hands and feet to scramble faster than she normally could when walking on them. She could also scale the baby gate at the top with ease that they kept up at night just in case Lily woke up and wandered in general. Daisy stifled a snicker and raced up the steps. Lily squealed as Daisy scooped her up into her arms, cradling her behind her back with an arm around her shoulders to keep her arms tucked in and with the other under her knees. She swung Lily up and ducked her head to blow a big raspberry on her stomach which made Lily squirm and squeal out a round of hysterical giggles.

Daisy carried Lily up the rest of the stairs, over the gate and back to her room. It took three read-throughs of _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_  before the repetition of something that normally happened when she was sleepy finally lulled Lily back into sleep. Daisy stayed with her, lightly humming and combing her fingers through Lily’s hair until she was sure Lily was down for the count before she headed back downstairs. She head up the hall next to the stairs, into the kitchen and turned into the dining room, stopping just inside the threshold when she spotted Jemma turning the last screw on the training wheels of the small bike on the dining room table.

“Ta da!” Jemma grinned when she saw the impressed look on her face at seeing the bike completed, little sparkling tendrils hanging from the ends of the handlebars and all. “How’d those fake nightmares go?” She asked with a grin, trying not to laugh.

Daisy snickered. “Remember when you iced Agent Sitwell in the chest?” she arched her eyebrows. Jemma cringed and nodded as Daisy stepped over to her and pulled her over by her waist. “Yeah, she made the exact same face you made right before she shouted about the bad dream,” She laughed.

Jemma shook her head as she slipped her arms around Daisy’s shoulders and hooked them behind her neck, letting them play in the short tufts of hair at the back of her neck. “Not all of us can be born with a natural talent and knack for bad girl shenanigans, you know,” she pointed out, as Daisy pulled her closer by her hips.

Daisy grinned. “Mhm,” she hummed. “There’s a reason I haven’t fixed those creaky stairs, y’know,” She grinned and tilted her head before leaning closer to Jemma.

“How devious,” Jemma feigned a gasp. She leaned up on her toes as she pulled Daisy in by the back of her neck to bring their lips together again. Daisy’s fingers easily found their way beneath the hem of Jemma’s t-shirt against the skin of her back before they slipped below the waistband of her pants to cup her ass and pulled them flush against each other. It wasn’t until Daisy broke their kiss for air and immediately set her mouth to work on her neck that Jemma gripped her arm and exhaled a shaky breath and said, “We still have t-to…mmm,” she sucked another breath, reluctant to make Daisy stop. “Presents,” Jemma blurted in a breathless murmur. “Wrap…presents,” she buried her fingers into Daisy’s hair and then reluctantly pulled back.

Daisy had a wicked little grin on her lips without letting go of her hold on Jemma. “I finished the ones in the closet yesterday, y’know…” she said. Jemma’s eyebrows arched. “So aside from the bike…”

“We just have to load them under the tree?” She asked.

“And put out some mostly eaten cookies and milk,” Daisy said with a suggestive bounce or two of her eyebrows.

“And carrots,” Jemma reminded her.

An overly sappy smile lit across Daisy’s face, remembering the first time Jemma had suggested this idea that first Christmas Eve they were together. “For the reindeer,” she confirmed with a nod.

Jemma granted Daisy one…no, three…okay five, last quick kisses before she looked around at the presents in the corner they had wrapped that night and the bike on the dining room table. “Okay, let’s get moving then,” she reached back for Daisy’s wrists to help pull them free from the back of her pants and kissed her again when Daisy pouted at her. “Quicker we set up, the quicker I can get you out of those clothes and have my way with you,” Jemma smirked. She scooped up the bike with his over the top bush bow full of extra ribbons on its handlebars and jokingly hip checked Daisy on her way by.

Daisy gathered the pile of presents from the corner to carry them to the living room. She let Jemma get the other ones from the locked cupboard under the stairs while she set up the plate of mostly eaten carrot stubs, cookies and almost completely finished cup of milk. She carried the plate into the living room and positioned it in just the right spot to look like the items were eaten and the note left in haste.

Once Jemma was sure everything was out under the tree and looked perfect, she and Daisy made their way upstairs. They checked on Lily in her room to make sure she was still asleep and once they were in the hallway heading for the master bedroom, Daisy wrapped her arms around Jemma’s waist and resumed her original kiss attack to the back and side of Jemma’s neck and the spot behind her ear. They stumbled a few times on the way into the room as Daisy’s hand slipped below her waistbands and dipped past her hips to slip between the apexes of her thighs. Daisy barely managed to remember to push the door shut behind them with her foot before they stumbled through the room and tumbled into bed, shedding layers of clothing as they went.

They fell together in a tangled heap of heated limbs, hands scrambling for purchase against canvases of peach and mocha colored flesh, patched in gooseflesh and beads of sweat, wet and ready, struggling to stifle and restrain the volume of their breathless pleas for each other and the guttural moans and groans that passed between them, swallowed up by the other’s mouth when necessary until the inevitable moment where they crashed together one after the other in surging uncontrolled spasms of muscle and pounding pulse beats and collapsed into a panting mass wrapped around each other, murmuring quiet affirmations of adoration between gentle kisses pressed to the closest patches of each other’s flesh they could reach.

As the cool air of the room dried their sweat and chilled them, Daisy shifted them around enough to pull the covers over them. She was reluctant to let go of Jemma so they could make their way back into their pajamas and instead wrapped herself around Jemma, who was pressed close to her, her face buried in the crook of Daisy’s neck and shoulder, legs tangled together as she placed gentle kisses against Daisy’s collarbone and throat between gulps of air. Daisy’s fingers combed rhythmically through Jemma’ hair, careful of any little knots they came across.

It seemed amazing to Daisy, in that moment, how far they had come in only the last six years. She kissed the top of Jemma’s head as she felt them both relaxing into sleep. “Merry Christmas, Jem,” Daisy murmured into her hair.

“Happy Christmas, Daisy,” Jemma’s lips mumbled against Daisy’s collar. “I love you.”

Daisy felt Jemma’s lips as they curved up into a smile against her skin. She waited, as she did sometimes, until she thought Jemma was just on the cusp of falling asleep and whispered, “I love you more.”

“Nu-uh,” Jemma murmured just before her breathing evened out against Daisy’s neck. Daisy grinned at the way it sounded so similar to the way Lily would have said it or its counter ‘ya-huh,’ which was something Jemma would have given her stern look for. Daisy let her eyes slip closed, letting the warmth and comfort brought by Jemma’s closeness lull her the rest of the way into sleep.

\---

_**December 25th 2021** _

Sleep was short-lived, unfortunately. When Lily awoke, when the sun had only _just_ started to come up, casting dim blue hues over everything, and had realized it was morning, she had scrambled out of her bed, screeching like a wild banshee as she raced down the hall to Daisy and Jemma’s room. Thankfully one of the times she and Jemma had woken up through the early AM hours, Jemma and Daisy had managed to both work their way back into their underwear and pajama shirts at least because as soon as Lily opened their door, she ran for the bed and climbed into it but scaling the bench at the foot of the bed, then climbing over the foot of the bed frame and promptly launched herself at both of her parents.

“MUMMYMAMAWAKEUPIT’SCHRISTMASSSSS!!!” The shriek was mashed all together in a single shrill word.

Daisy scrunched her eyes and tried to keep them forced closed. Jemma inhaled a sharp breath. “Daisy, your daughter’s here to wake you up,” she murmured, still half asleep as Lily pulled herself to her feet and started jumping on the bed.

“C’MONNNNN!!! SANTA CAME WE GOTS PRESENTS!!” Lily cheered.

“Wait, she’s mine if she’s screeching about Santa?” Daisy asked, finally cracking her eyes open to make sure Lily didn’t fall while she was bouncing on the bed. She smirked a little at the sight of their excited two year old.

“Yup,” Jemma answered, rolling her upper half on her side to blindly kiss the side of Daisy’s head and managing to catch the top of her ear.

Daisy chuckled. Lily repeated another shrieking appeal to go for presents. Daisy turned her head and kissed Jemma’s forehead and Jemma grinned and let out a sleepy hum of approval. Daisy leaned up on her elbows and looked at Lily. “You sure Santa left you presents after your naughty attempts to sneak downstairs repeatedly last night?” She smirked and arched her eyebrows.

Lily stopped bouncing and her face fell a moment as she thought about that. Suddenly she was clambering to the edge of the bed. Daisy reached out and a hand to keep her from falling and Lily used it to swing down from the bed to the floor. “I’LL GO CHECK!” she turned to run for the stairs.

Jemma’s eyes popped open and she sat up as Daisy chuckled. “Go get her before she gets down there without us!” She pushed at Daisy’s shoulder as Daisy was already scrambling out of bed and racing after their much faster and more energetic daughter, both so she could stop her from heading downstairs before Jemma was down there with the camera to catch her reaction and also so Lily didn’t go rushing over the baby gate and down the stairs where she might hurt herself in her haste.

“Heyyyyyy, not so fast Monkey!!” Daisy chuckled as she caught Lily under her arms as she was halfway over the baby gate and hoisted her up into the air. Her little legs kept kicking even while she was suspended in the air. Daisy laughed and situated her at her side, turning quickly to head back into the master bedroom.

“Mamaaaaaaaaaa!” Lily whined as she tried to squirm free.

“Lillllyyyyyyyy!” Daisy mimicked the whine and lifted Lily higher, tickling at her sides as she leaned over to set her back down on the bed. “You can’t race down to see if Santa came without us!” She feigned a gasp. “Santa’s already watching you for _next year_! You can’t start off on the Naughty list already!!” She teased as Lily squealed and wormed around, trying to evade Daisy’s tickling fingers. Jemma was already out of bed and had tugged on her pajama pants and slippers. She ran a brush through her hair and then nodded for the door after catching Daisy’s eye. Daisy nodded and Jemma slipped out of the room.

“Tell you what, Monkey, you help me find my slippers and then we’ll head down okay?”

Daisy proposed. “How’s that sound?” she asked, still lightly tickling Lily’s sides.

“Yesssssss!!” Lily squealed as she giggled and wiggled around. “YESS MAMAA!” She agreed.

Daisy snickered. She leaned her hands down on the bed on either side of Lily and dipped her head to give her neck, shoulder and cheek a kiss attack. “Okay, find those slippers!” She said, knowing exactly where the slippers were since she and Jemma had put their slippers out before they had gone to wrap and assemble presents the night before. They were right in front of the bureau, which gave Daisy enough time to grab her pajama pants and tug them on before Lily returned. “Thank you, sweetheart,” Daisy scooped Lily up into her arms again and stepped into the slippers. She walked to the bureau, balancing Lily in one arm as Lily held onto her shoulder and wrapped her legs around her waist, so she could run a brush through her bed head to tame it and then through Lily’s.

“Okay, let’s go!” Daisy grinned and Lily cheered as Daisy headed for the stairs. Jemma had moved the baby gate, but Daisy paused at the stairs. “Jem?” she called to see if Jemma was ready.

“Quick! Come see what Santa left us!” Jemma called back.

Lily squirmed in Daisy’s arms as Daisy started down the stairs. “SANTA CAME!” She cheered a loud shriek in Daisy’s ear that made Daisy fight not to cringe at the pain that shot through her ear drum as she chuckled.

At the bottom of the stairs, Daisy turned toward the living room and let Lily down – her little legs moving again before she even hit the floor. Daisy was chuckling again as Lily went careening for the living room and Daisy followed. Jemma was set up with her camera phone filming from behind the area that the tree and carefully arranged presents were so she could get Lily’s full reaction.

Both Jemma and Daisy were snickering as Lily skidded to a stop in front of the pile of perfectly wrapped presents in various shiny, sparkling and festive wrapping paper and amidst the pile of gifts was the already assembled ‘big girl bike,’ as Lily had called it when she saw Casey riding one compared with her tricycle. Lily’s jaw hung slack open and her eyes were bugging out as she took in the scene before her. She looked back and forth, almost bouncing on her feet, between Jemma and Daisy.

“SANTA LEFT PRESENTS!!!” She screeched, as if neither of her moms could see that for themselves. Daisy and Jemma laughed. All at once, Lily lost the ability to decide what she should do first. She was practically shaking with glee as she raced around the room from the mountain of presents, over to Daisy, over to Jemma, back over to the presents to touch one of the handlebars of the bike, back to Daisy. Lily grabbed Daisy’s hand and dragged her toward the pile of presents. “MAMA LOOK!” she pointed at the bike with its white wheels, its purple and green frame and the frilly pom poms sticking from the ends of the handlebars and its matching purple and green training wheels.

Daisy grinned, “I see!” she hooked Lily under her arms and picked her up off the ground to keep her from running away again. She sat her down on the seat of the bike and crouched town to hold her in place by her hips on the seat. “Don’t pedal inside,” Daisy said, moving one hand to stop the pedals from being able to move. Lily leaned forward and grabbed the handles around the bow that was hanging from the middle of the handlebars. “Santa sure brought you an awesome bike!” Daisy grinned at the Cheshire sized smile on Lily’s face.

“I LOVE IT!” Lily squealed and Daisy and Jemma both chuckled.

It took some time to settle Lily down enough so they could get set up with her on the floor so she could unwrap her presents. Elvis, who had been hiding in his favorite spot on one of the branches in the Christmas tree (the number of times that cat had startled Jemma or Daisy but poking just enough of his head out through the branches when they were walking by….ay yi yi!), finally jumped out to join them so he could roll around swatting at the ribbons and bows from the gifts as Lily unwrapped them. Once Lily’s presents were finished, Jemma headed for the kitchen with the trash bag full of discarded wrapping paper and ribbons. She returned with a mug of coffee for Daisy and a mug of tea for herself and settled onto the couch next to Daisy while Lily played with some of her new toys on the floor, avidly talking to Elvis about them while Elvis laid in front of her on his back with the giant bow from the bicycle draped around his head.

Daisy grinned when Jemma settled next to her. “Thanks,” she said as she took the mug in her right hand and lifted her left arm to wrap it around Jemma.

“Mm,” Jemma hummed in response as she was taking a sip from her mug. She pulled her legs up to help curl snugly into Daisy’s side.

Daisy turned and kissed the top of her head. “It should be illegal how entertaining it is to watch her when she’s excited about something,” She murmured after she brought her head to rest on its side against Jemma’s, grinning when she felt Jemma’s body shake with chuckles.

“I’m in full agreement,” Jemma smiled as she cuddled against Daisy while they watched Lily and Elvis.

Lily looked over them and it seemed she suddenly remembered something. Turning to look at the tree, she dashed through the pile of toys and under crawled under the tree.

“Lily?” Jemma called with concern as they watched her disappear under the tree. “What are you doing back there, love?”

“I FORGOTTED!” Lily called back to them.

“What did you forget, honey?” Daisy asked, furrowing her brow. Both she and Jemma sat up straight. Daisy set her mug down on a coaster on the coffee table, preparing to stand when suddenly Lily appeared, crawling out from under the tree with a small box tucked in her arms.

Jemma and Daisy exchanged a glance, both wondering who had bought and wrapped the gift since neither recognized it. “Did you forget to unwrap a gift? Oh no!” Jemma exaggerated her enthusiasm as she moved to set her teacup down on a coaster next to Daisy’s coffee.

“It’s for you!!” Lily held the box out to them with both hands and a proud beaming grin on her face.

Both Daisy and Jemma arched their eyebrows. “For us?” Daisy asked with an enthusiastic gasp as Jemma reached out to take the box she offered them. Daisy scooped Lily up from behind and pulled her into her lap to sit partially on her knee and partially on Jemma’s knee so she was seated almost between them. “From Santa?” Daisy asked as she kissed the side of Lily’s head.

“Nooooooo, Mama!” Lily shook her head as she leaned it back to look at Daisy. “From _me_!” She pointed to herself and grinned.

“From _you_?” Jemma gasped.

Lily nodded. “OPEN IT!!” She cheered.

Jemma chuckled and leaned over to kiss Lily’s cheek as she pulled the ribbon on the box. She peeled the paper away and crumpled it, setting it next to her leg on the couch just as Elvis was stalking the swinging ribbon from under the coffee table. Jemma opened the box and inside there was a pile of glass Christmas ornaments, all were different ornament shapes, each one flat but double sided. They were ringed in different color metal and each one looked like a stained glass patchwork of different pictures of the Johnson-Simmons family – all three of them (four for the ones including Elvis) – and some that included various members of the team (family).

“Lily, did you make these?” Jemma asked, running her fingers over them as she looked each one over, front and back and angled them all for Daisy to see.

“I did!” Lily beamed another proud grin at her. “You like ‘em?” She asked.

Both Jemma and Daisy knew that someone must have helped Lily with this gift, but neither was going to comment on that. “They’re beautiful, Monkey,” Daisy kissed the top of her head. “Thank you,” she grinned.

Jemma lowered the box to her lap and leaned over to kiss Lily’s cheek. She and Daisy leaned over at the same time to squish Lily into a big bear hug. “Thank you, sweetheart, they’re wonderful!” Jemma gushed with a fond smile.

“MERRY CHRISTMAS!” Lily cheered as she hugged Jemma since Daisy was positioned behind her.

“Who’s hungry?” Daisy asked.

“WAFFLES!!!” Lily cried as if Daisy had asked what she wanted for breakfast and not just whether or not anyone was hungry.

Daisy laughed. “I guess we’re having waffles for breakfast,” She leaned over to kiss Jemma as she moved to stand, taking Lily with her for a moment. “What kind of waffles do you want?” she asked as she pulled Lily up and kissed her cheek.

“Monkey chips!” Lily’s eyes widened at the prospect.

Daisy laughed. “You got it, kid,” she ruffled Lily’s hair and then grabbed her coffee. She bent at the waist again and kissed Jemma once more. “I’ll call you when breakfast’s ready,” she said.

“No monkey chips for me, just banana, please,” Jemma grinned.

“You got it, Boss,” Daisy chuckled as she gave Jemma a salute and headed for the kitchen as Lily crawled into Jemma’s lap.

Jemma set the box down next to her and wrapped and arm around Lily as she grabbed the ornaments. “Why don’t we find places to hang these from the tree so Nǎinai and Papa will see them when they come over later?” she asked.

Lily’s eyes widened. “Yeah!!” she cheered, almost bouncing with excitement in her spot in Jemma’s lap. Jemma stood up and walked to the tree, balancing Lily with one arm and holding the ornaments in her other hand.

After breakfast the family settled into the living room to play together. They took a short nap, snuggled together on the couch and in the afternoon they made their way upstairs to get changed, still in comfy clothes but at least day clothes instead of pajamas, jeans and sweatshirts. In the early afternoon, Coulson and May arrived to give Lily the Christmas gifts they had gotten for her. Some of the others would be joining them later for dinner but for the better part of the afternoon the five of them laid inside a pillow/blanket fort that May had meticulously crafted and watched all their favorite Christmas movie specials. Thankfully no major disasters occurred and the family was able to spend the afternoon occasionally napping during movies and then spent the evening mingling together with each other over a warm meal and lots of laughter.

\---

_**January 23rd 2022** _

“I think we should consider looking into adoption proceedings again,” It was a touchy subject to bring up on this particular day, the anniversary of Carter’s death, but it was the thing that had come out while she and Jemma were getting changed in their room after putting Lily to bed.

Daisy looked over at Jemma, pausing after having pulled her shirt over her head, her arms still stuck through the material. Jemma looked just as shocked as Daisy even though Jemma was the one who had made the suggestion. “…You do?” Daisy stammered.

Jemma felt a sudden rush of mingled embarrassment and guilt. Perhaps Daisy thought she suggested it as a replacement for Carter the way Daisy had worried Jemma might think that was her motive for suggesting they try again for a baby after Carter, since they still had one remaining implant left waiting for them; the one that had turned out to be Lily. Jemma fidgeted with one of the throw pillows on the bed as she picked it up. “Well…sure…I mean…” Jemma cleared her throat and avoided looking at Daisy. “It’s something to…to consider…if you want…” she tried to sound nonchalant as she shrugged.

Daisy watched her wife carefully. She tossed her dirty shirt to the hamper and tugged her clean night thermal on as she crossed the room to where Jemma was standing next to the bed. “Hey,” she slipped an arm around Jemma’s waist and weaved her fingers through Jemma’s hair with the fingers of her other hand. “I love you,” she leaned over and gave Jemma a quick kiss to accentuate each point as she spoke, “I love our family,” she kissed Jemma again as Jemma leaned her weight against her. “Of course I would want to look into possibly expanding our family,” she kissed her once more and pressed her forehead to Jemma’s.

“But?” Jemma asked, feeling like there was something she wasn’t hearing.

“But nothing,” Daisy smiled. “We can call the agency tomorrow and make an appointment to go talk with them?” she suggested, lifting her head to kiss the end of Jemma’s nose.

Jemma hesitated. “Are you sure?” She asked, unsure why she thought there should have been resistance to the idea.

Daisy gave her a reassuring smile and used the arm around her waist to pull her closer, setting them to sway ever so slightly as Jemma’s hands rested against the front of her shoulders. “Positive,” She answered. “I was just surprised when you brought it up. I didn’t know you were thinking about it,” Daisy explained as she traced the pad of her thumb over Jemma’s cheek.

Jemma turned her eyes down toward Daisy’s collar. She shrugged her shoulders slightly. “It’s crossed my mind a couple of times here and there over the last few months,” she confessed. “I just…wasn’t sure if it was something I thought we should consider again or not, considering our work and juggling that with trying to give Lily as much of a normal life as possible…” she looked up at Daisy again finally to find Daisy with an amused smile on her lips. “What?” Jemma asked, cheeks flushing pink.

Daisy leaned closer and bumped her nose to Jemma’s. “Remember when you cornered me over coms while I was dismantling a massive weapon of mass destruction to demand we speak about the possibility of starting a family?” She arched just her right eyebrow upward and let her toothy grin spread fully across her face.

Jemma’s blush deepened and she turned her head down and leaned her forehead into Daisy’s collar as she expelled a startled snort of laughter. Daisy chuckled and kissed the side of her head. “I love everything about this idea,” she promised, “About as much as I’d love to peel you out of your clothes and have my way with you right now…” She ducked her head lower and kissed a few spots along Jemma’s shoulder and into the side of her neck.

“Mm…” Jemma hummed as she slipped her arms around Daisy’s neck. “I think we’ll be able to come to some agreement on terms of s-services…” Jemma’s words hitched in a sharp gasp as Daisy’s teeth dragged over her pulse point before her tongue and mouth converged to soothe over the spot. “F-for, um…this c-contract…” Jemma stammered. Daisy grinned against her neck and moved to pull Jemma down into their bed.

\---

**February 2nd 2022**

“How’s she feeling?” Jemma asked over the phone from the lab, talking with Daisy over video chat from her laptop while she worked.

“So miserably cranky it hurts,” Daisy answered. Lily had been very lethargic this morning. Typically she was up before Jemma or Daisy and would come crawl into their bed to wake them up. It was one of the few things in life that made Daisy want to be a ‘morning person,’ when the three of them were cuddling in bed, murmuring half-asleep conversations with each other. When Jemma and Daisy had woken up, Daisy had gone to check on Lily while Jemma had hopped into the shower.

Lily’s lethargy stemmed from a tummy ache. She had been lying curled up in her bed, the muscles of her face strained and contorted into pain. Daisy had sat down on the edge of her bed and rubbed her back as she asked what was wrong and Lily had just whimpered that her tummy hurt.

Daisy had tried to take Lily through their normal morning routine, hoping that it wasn’t anything serious. Her temperature was barely a degree higher than normal. Lily stayed, basically, attached to whichever of the two of them was holding her at any given time, burrowed into their shoulder, whimpering at the end of a breath every so often or just whining out an answer to a particular question Daisy or Jemma asked her. She had refused to try and eat any breakfast and it had been difficult to even get her to drink some apple juice or water.

Jemma frowned thoughtfully and looked over at the Daisy on the computer screen. “Oh, so she’s acting just like you when you’ve got a cold?” she teased in an attempt to assuage both her and Daisy’s worries.

Daisy made a face but smirked a little. “I do not!” she protested. Jemma put her hands on her hips and arched her eyebrows over her protective glasses and Daisy sighed. “Okay, _maybe_  I get a little cranky…” She conceded and Jemma smiled a little at her.

“Has she eaten anything at all yet?” Jemma asked, dropping back into serious mom concern mode.

“I got her to eat a few bites of toast,” Daisy answered. “She got sick for the second time at,” she glanced to the side of the computer, where her phone was with its notepad open. “About 3:45,” she said, moving to look back at the computer.

“So twice in three hours,” Jemma chewed her bottom lip.

“She said it hurts more than when she woke up this morning,” Daisy added. “Her temperature’s currently at 100.2.” It wasn’t the first time Lily had been sick, but Daisy wasn’t sure if this was the flu or something more, so she hadn’t argued at all at Jemma’s insistence that she keep written track of specific things throughout the day while Jemma was at work.

“Have you checked to see if her stomach is swollen at all?” Jemma asked as she continued chewing her bottom lip and letting, Daisy was sure, scientific thoughts rush through her mind.

Daisy nodded. “It doesn’t seem like it’s swollen or bloated right now. I asked her if there was certain part of her tummy that hurt and she said it was this area,” Daisy leaned back and lifted her hand to indicate the front section of stomach below her bellybutton area. “What are you thinking?”

Jemma bit her lip a moment. “Do you think it could be appendicitis?” she asked, feeling unsure of her own suspicions. There were a number of things it _could_  be with the symptoms Lily had and Jemma didn’t want to go overboard unnecessarily as a panicked parent.

Daisy’s eyebrows arched. Jemma was much more qualified to diagnose something like that that she was and if it _was_  appendicitis, they would need to get Lily to the hospital right away to confirm it. “The area she says hurts is too high, right? That’s lower down on one of the sides isn’t it?”

“Lower right side, yes,” Jemma nodded. “Down by the hip area, near the spot where you bend over,” she thought about it for a moment and then looked at the computer screen again. “Call Doctor Damani and relay the symptoms. See if there’s any way he can squeeze her in for an appointment to see if he’ll check our records and examine her for appendicitis,” she instructed.

Daisy gave her a salute and grabbed her phone from the counter. As she was scrolling for the numbers, Lily whimpered for her from the living room. “Hang on a sec, Jem,” she put the phone to her ear and disappeared into the nearby living room.

When Daisy made it to the living room, Lily was lying on the floor instead of the couch and had started crying because she had spit up again. Daisy frowned and glanced at her watch. _5:12pm_  She crouched down next to Lily and reached out for her. Lily cried harder and then whimpered and tried to curl up into a ball because of the pain. She murmured an apology for throwing up. “C’mere, sweetheart, it’s okay,” Daisy assured as she pulled Lily up to her, frowning as Lily let out a whimper of pain at being moved. She sniffled and buried her face in Daisy’s neck after wiping her face on Daisy’s shoulder by rubbing it back and forth on her shirt. Daisy wasn’t sure, but she thought Lily felt warmer now than she had earlier.

“Let’s get you cleaned up. We’ll go talk to Mummy on the computer after that okay?” Daisy said as she used the extra towel she had put on the couch under Lily to clean up the small patch of throw up on the floor so Elvis wouldn’t get to it. She stood up, careful not to jostle Lily as she walked back into the kitchen, where she had been talking to Jemma on the laptop that was on the counter. She tossed the towel into the sink and wiped her hand on her pant leg. “Yes, hello,” she said when the doctor’s office picked up. “This is Daisy Simmons,” she said. “I’m calling to talk Doctor Damani about my daughter, Lily,” she headed for the refrigerator, grabbing Lily’s cup on the way to fill it halfway with apple juice as Lily clung to her, sniffling and whimpering.

Jemma frowned as she turned her focus entirely to the computer, turning the volume up to listen as Daisy explained the situation.

“She’s complaining of stomach pain around the bottom of her bellybutton. She’s thrown up three times so far, just after the first time just after 1pm today, once at 3:45, and then again just a moment ago,” Daisy was saying as she stopped by the sink again so she could wet the rag to clean off Lily’s face and chest from the incident. She put the rag down and carried her, the phone and the juice cup to the island counter. Lily whined her name as she climbed up into the stool and sat the little girl sideways across her lap. Jemma’s eyes immediately started to scan over Lily to see if anything specific jumped out at her. Daisy put the cell phone on speaker and turned the volume up so Jemma could hear while she rocked gently with Lily. “Her temperature was 100.2 when I last checked a half hour ago but I’m about to check it again, she seems warmer now.”

“Okay, while you do that I’m going to put you on hold and go speak with Doctor Damani,” the receptionist said. Daisy thanked her and then terrible hold music filled the air.

“She’s been sick again?” Jemma asked, frowning much in the same way Daisy was – the telltale parental ‘my kid’s in pain and I don’t know what to do’ helpless frown.

Daisy nodded. “Just a little bit,” she said, picking up the cup and trying to get Lily to take a little sip of it. Lily looked to the computer screen when she heard Jemma’s voice and whimpered for her Mummy now too, which only made Jemma’s face contort in pain.

“Lily, honey,” Jemma said as Daisy put the cup down and grabbed the thermometer so she could put it into Lily’s ear to take her temperature. “Can you point for Mama and me to where it hurts in your tummy?” she asked.

Lily gave her a couple of slow nods after the thermometer beeped and Daisy pulled it free from her ear. “101.9,” Daisy read off the number and Jemma’s frown deepened. Daisy put the thermometer down and moved to pull Lily up to stand on her lap. Lily cried and reached for her. Daisy frowned. She was barely keeping her urge to panic in check. “I know, baby, I know it hurts. We’re waiting for Doctor Damani so we can see how to make it all better, okay? Can you show me where it hurts the most?” She asked.

Lily patted her belly in the same area she had last time and frowned. Daisy held her up with one arm and lifted the bottom of her pajama shirt, holding it there with the arm she had around Lily holding her up. Lily’s stomach was certainly a bit bloated now, sticking out farther than it normally did. “Right here?” Daisy’s free hand pressed with the barest of pressure at first to Lily’s stomach just below her bellybutton. Lily nodded and sniffled as she frowned, her bottom lip jutting out. Daisy pressed a bit firmer, but Lily didn’t flinch at the touch.

“She wasn’t bloated like this an hour ago,” Daisy said to Jemma as her fingers probed and pressed Lily’s stomach. Her stomach felt stiff instead of its normal soft baby fluff rebound. She pressed around the bottom of Lily’s abdomen from the left side over to the right. “Tell me if this hurts, honey, okay?” She instructed Lily. Lily nodded but didn’t say it hurt and didn’t cry out, at least not until Daisy pressed Lily’s right side. When her fingers pulled back and the area started to rebound back into its regular spot, Lily let out a howl of pain and doubled over toward Daisy’s shoulder and let out a sob.

Daisy’s eyes widened as she held Lily against her chest. “Okay…okay, I’m sorry sweetheart,” she patted Lily’s back and tried to comfort her while trying not to let her internal panic out in light of the fact that something was obviously wrong with Lily and she had no idea how to fix it or what to do.

“Mrs. Simmons, are you still there?” the receptionist asked, coming back to the phone at the same time that Jemma spoke from the computer screen.

“Daisy, take her to the emergency room, right now,” Jemma said with urgency, eyes wide on the computer screen feed, as the receptionist returned to the phone call. Daisy blinked at Jemma but immediately nodded and hopped from the stool, setting Lily against her left side so she could go and grab her bag from the other counter. She slung it over her shoulder and grabbed her keys as Jemma spoke from the computer to the phone for her.

“Helen, this is Doctor Simmons, Lily’s other mum. Please advise Doctor Damani that Daisy is taking Lily to the closest emergency room at,” Jemma rambled off the hospital name and address, “I suspect she may have appendicitis and would like to confirm it and proceed or rule it out completely. I will be meeting them there, can you have Doctor Damani please contact me on my mobile as soon as possible?” She read off her cell number and Daisy thanked the receptionist who readily agreed and hung up to call Jemma’s line.

“Jem-,”

“Daisy, don’t give her anything else to eat or drink. Just get her to the emergency room as quickly as you can. I’ll meet you there as soon as possible. I’ll call you as soon as I finish talking to Doctor Damani. We’ll notify the emergency room to expect you. Go,” Jemma said. “I love you.”

“Love you,” Daisy nodded and closed the laptop. She grabbed her phone and made her way out of the house and to the car. Lily was crying but Daisy tried to focus on the need to get her to the emergency room despite the overwhelming urge to coddle Lily and find a way to calm her down. It was obvious that Jemma thought Lily really must have appendicitis – or possibly something worse – that needed immediate diagnosis and action. Daisy wasn’t going to do anything that would cause a delay in getting Lily to the emergency room. She did her best to try and reassure Lily from the front seat while she drove.

Unfortunately, swerving in and out of traffic during rush hour as she got closer to the heavier trafficked areas of town led to getting pulled over. A quick look into the backseat and an explanation from Daisy about the emergency led her to a police escort, though, which got Daisy to the emergency room in ten minutes instead of twenty.

\--

“The doctors are going to give you something to help you sleep, sweetheart,” Jemma and Daisy were seated on either side of Lily’s hospital bed after almost two hours of ultrasounds, X-rays, scans and blood tests to confirm that Lily needed surgery to remove her appendix. She had thrown up two more times and her fever was continually creeping higher as lily had continued crying and wailing about the pain while Daisy and Jemma had remained helplessly tortured for some way to help their daughter. “While you’re asleep they’re going to go in and take care of the thing that’s making your tummy hurt,” She explained as Lily looked warily between both of them, holding one of their hands in each of hers in a little death grip of fear and pain, unable to comprehend why they couldn’t do anything to make her feel better.

Daisy nodded. “We’ll be here the whole time,” she said. “When you wake up, you’ll still feel achy, but it won’t be like it is right now,” She said. They were merely waiting for the operating room to be prepped before the doctor and nurses came to collect Lily. Daisy and Jemma were doing their best to explain what was going on and what was going to happen so that she understood.

When they finally came to collect her, Daisy and Jemma walked next to the bed the whole way until the last set of doors that they couldn’t pass without ruining the sterility of the operating room. Each of them squeezed Lily’s hands and leaned over to kiss the side of her head. As soon as Lily was rolled away from them a few feet, she started to wail harder as the nurse walking next to the bed tried to calm her down.

Daisy had tears streaking down her cheeks at the distressed echoes of Lily’s wails. Jemma wiped her cheeks quickly and wrapped her arm around Daisy’s shoulders, pulling her over into a hug.

“She’s going to be alright,” Jemma assured her as Daisy wrapped her arms around her. Anything could happen where surgery was concerned, Jemma knew that. She needed to believe that getting Lily here in a timely fashion and before her appendix could burst meant that they could breathe a bit easier. “This is a routine type of operation. Her appendix hasn’t ruptured. You got her here in time. She’ll be alright,” she said as Daisy sniffled and tried to compose herself.

\---

**February 3rd 2022**

Lily had been in surgery for about two hours in total. Her appendix had been removed laparoscopically with no complications and she had a few tiny incision holes with 1-3 stitches each. The doctors had said they would be in the hospital for another 48-72 hours depending on Lily’s recovery. The doctors gave them all manner of paperwork that Jemma had gone through multiple times while they were waking for Lily to wake up after surgery. By then, Coulson and May had come to meet them at the hospital with food and coffee and were in the room with them. After they were released, the doctors said it could be some time before Lily was back to her normal activities. For the first few days home, they would have to do their best to keep her from doing anything strenuous and that it was okay to let her rest as much as she needed to. They would have to see how Lily felt about food in order to see what they might have to adjust about her diet in the first couple of days and would have to keep close eye on making sure she had enough water to keep from dehydrating.

There were all kinds of restrictions and directions – no bath for the first 2 weeks, but showers were allowed. Pat the incisions dry, do not rub them. No bike riding, no lifting anything that would make her strain until the doctor gives the okay. Walks were allowed so long as they were properly paced and they kept a stern eye on Lily’s ability to handle it. Playing with toys and other kids was okay so long as they were with her and could make sure there was no rowdiness, straining or roughhousing of any kind. All in all they were looking at about or at least three weeks before Lily would return to her energetic self, all healed up and back to normal.

Daisy felt rattled by it all. It was one thing to have a medical emergency for her or Jemma because of their jobs. For something like this to happen to their daughter for no reason, it scared her to her core. The idea that anything could take either Jemma or Lily away from her always made fear fester in her gut and this was no different than any other time. More than that, it had been something that Daisy hadn’t had any experience with or clue how to handle other than handing her daughter over to the hospital staff and hoping things turned out alright.

Jemma reached out for her hand from the chair seated next to her. Daisy tensed a moment and then looked over at her. Jemma’s other hand reached and combed through Daisy’s hair and came to rest on the back of her neck, her fingers working gently against the knotted, tense muscles there to try and relax them. “She’s safe, Daisy,” Jemma whispered knowingly.

Daisy frowned and dropped her eyes to her other hand, which was holding onto Lily’s much smaller one while she slept. “I know, it’s just…” She hesitated and Jemma stayed quiet, waiting to see if she would go on, letting her fingers work to try and console Daisy, to ease some of her fear. Jemma wasn’t without her concerns over Lily’s condition. They were past the most dangerous portion of this situation, though and they had more control over Lily’s recovery than they had over the outcome of her ailment before they knew for sure what it was.

Daisy frowned and inhaled a steadying breath. “There was literally nothing I could do to help her,” She whispered.

Jemma remembered the first time she had that feeling, after Quinn had shot Daisy, when she had lost her multiple times. Over and over there was nothing she could do by cycle through bringing Daisy back without knowing whether or not Daisy would want her to keep bringing her back only to be hooked up to life support without any idea if Coulson and the others would be able to find something to save her. She had dealt with the mental and emotional fallout of using the GH.325. By the time Fitz had returned with the serum, Jemma had been desperate for anything that would keep Daisy from coding again. She had struggled with wondering just how selfish that decision was for a long time afterward. Jemma knew she would have made the decision to use the serum every time, were she forced to relive the moment over and over again; every time she would have chosen saving Daisy, no question. That didn’t mean there hadn’t been ethical fallout from it, especially when they had struggled to determine so much about it following Daisy’s recovery.

“Yes there was,” Jemma replied, working her fingers over Daisy’s neck, as if she could press just the right spot to allow Daisy to absorb her words and take comfort from them. Daisy’s brow furrowed as she looked over at her wife. “And you did exactly that. You watched for changes in her symptoms. You did what you could to make her feel better. You called me to talk about her symptoms. You kept checking them even while you were talking to me. You brought her here as soon as we both realized this was something more than the flu or a stomach bug,” Jemma went on. “You did _everything_  you were supposed to do as her Mama and you didn’t hesitate.” She offered Daisy a reassuring smile. “Because of that, Lily’s going to be just fine.”

Daisy’s eyes welled slightly and she dropped her gaze from Jemma’s, not entirely convinced by the comforting words her wife gave her. She shook her head. “I know she’ll be okay now…I know that’s true, but I just…I still feel helpless. There wasn’t anything I could do to stop her from the pain she was in and…she’ll still be in pain when she wakes up, even if it’s not as bad as it was and there won’t be much of anything we can do about that. That part’s manageable, but,” Daisy couldn’t seem to stop her sudden ramble. “It’s different…when it’s you or me, or it’s because of something that’s happened at work…there’s a tangible… _something_  and I can find ways to fight it or fix it, but this wasn’t…” She reluctantly let her eyes rise to Jemma’s. “I-I don’t know what I would…” she glanced toward the bed at Lily as her heart jumped painfully in her rib cage. “I could never come back from it, Jem…i-if I lost either of you…” she whispered it so quietly, as if she were afraid that saying it out loud might make it happen, that Jemma had to strain to hear the words.

Jemma kissed her temple and pulled her in, wrapping her arm around Daisy’s shoulders and squeezing her arm. She let go of Daisy’s hand so she could move both of her arms around Daisy, one with her fingers buried in Daisy’s hair, cradling her head into the crook of her shoulder, the other firmly around her and moving against the back of her shoulder, along the outsider of her arm and back again. “I love you,” Jemma murmured after kissing the side of Daisy’s head. “I know it’s scary,” Jemma had dealt with that kind of fear of ineffectualness, it had been one of the reasons she had tried to get Daisy to go with her to her therapist appointments with Doctor Rhoads after the incident last year with her illness. It was clear that they both dealt with this kind of fear differently and Jemma was sure that was partially because of the way she had shut down and what she had put Daisy through after they had lost Carter.

“I’m scared too,” Jemma said as she held onto Daisy. Daisy’s free arm wound its way around Jemma’s middle and held on tight. “We’re through the worst of this one,” she assured. “The rest of it is within our power to make sure she heals up and gets back to her normal boisterous self.”

Daisy nodded against her shoulder. “I love you,” she murmured against Jemma’s collar. “If you hadn’t been here I wouldn’t have known what to do,” She said.

Jemma didn’t believe that was true, but she understood how Daisy would have come to this conclusion. “Hey…” she leaned back and settled her hand onto the back of Daisy’s cheek and jaw and against her neck so she could pull Daisy’s face up to look her in the eyes. “Do you really think I’d have any idea how to help Lily understand her bubble and everything that comes with it without you? What about reading all her favorite stories to her? We both know I don’t ‘do the voice right mummy!’” She gave Daisy a slightly watery eyed smile as she quietly imitated the demand Lily often made of Jemma, who wasn’t nearly as skilled at animatedly throwing her voice for characters in the books like Daisy was. It managed to get a small snort and an equally small smile from Daisy.

“There’s a reason that we’re in this together, Daisy,” Jemma said. “We support each other. We learn from each other. We cover all the possible bases between us. That’s how it works. It’s what we do. It’s what we _did_ , and look,” she turned her head to look over at Lily in the hospital bed. She waited for Daisy to follow her gaze and then went on, “Because of that, she’s safe. She’s right here with us. We’re alright and we’re together.” She leaned over and kissed Daisy’s cheek, dropping her arm to move it along her back, hoping to be as reassuring as possible.

Daisy was quiet for a long few moments as she leaned into Jemma’s embrace. She nodded and turned to kiss Jemma. Jemma pulled her back in after the kiss for another hug. “Thanks, Jem,” Daisy murmured on a shaky exhale. Jemma turned her head and kissed the side of Daisy’s in response, squeezing her arms around her for a moment. She was content to let them take comfort in each other while they waited for Lily to wake up.

\---

**February 6th 2022**

Lily’s first day at the hospital had been a bit of a blur. Lily, thankfully, had slept through a great deal of it, which gave her body time to start healing while Daisy and Jemma were there to keep her calm and assure her that everything was okay and to explain what they could so she would understand but were running under the assumption that they would have to explain it again once she was more coherent. The second day had been a little harder. Lily was still tired. They were giving her some medication to deal with the pain so that helped, but Lily was still, understandably, cranky. Jemma, Daisy, Coulson and May did what they could to keep her entertained without riling her up or making her do anything that could make her strain herself. Bobbi had stopped at the Johnson-Simmons house and the bookstore the night before and had delivered them a small mountain of books so they could take turns reading to Lily and, in some cases with the easier books (the ones she practically knew by heart in some cases), helping her read them out loud.

It felt like ages to Daisy before the morning of the 6th came and the doctors finally told them they were going to release Lily and let them take her home. Daisy felt more relaxed and at ease having Lily at home. Being with her in the hospital left Daisy on edge, even knowing that everything was perfectly fine with her each time the nurses checked on her or Jemma assured her that the monitors were all reading normally. Daisy could tell Lily was relieved to be home too.

Currently, Jemma was in the kitchen making some soup. Lily and Daisy were in the living room. Daisy was in a fresh pair of sweats with her legs resting crossed up on the coffee table. Lily was lying with her head in Daisy’s lap, curled up on her side on the couch, holding Groot up by her mouth and chin, tucked in with her baby blanket. She was half asleep and dozed off now and then as Daisy streamed through whatever of her favorite movies Lily asked her to play. Daisy alternated between combing her fingers through Lily’s hair and running her hand along Lily’s back and arm in slow, soothing patterns.

At the end of the current movie, Lily rolled onto her back and Daisy watched as her face scrunched a bit. “Does it hurt?” Daisy asked her, trying her best to ignore the way her heart twitched in her chest when Lily nodded and pouted at her. Daisy leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry, baby. I know it doesn’t seem like it but it’s going to started feeling better soon, I promise,” Daisy said. Lily held her arms up to Daisy and Daisy carefully moved to scoop her up and brought her to sit sideways across her lap. She knew it would be a little while before they would be able to give her anything else for the pain, so she tried to think of a good distraction. It was hard to know which Lily needed more: something to distract and entertain her or to take another nap. The doctor’s notes had told them to let Lily rest as much as she needed to, and, honestly, Daisy figured sleeping was the best thing since it meant Lily wasn’t conscious during the ache of healing.

At the same time, Daisy felt almost as inwardly cranky as Lily was outwardly. She wanted nothing more than for Lily to feel better so she could return to her usual happy self. She brushed her fingers through Lily’s hair as she kept her other arm wrapped around Lily after turning to stretch out along the couch so she could lay back with Lily. “What do you say we take a nap, hm?” She asked before she kissed Lily’s forehead. “Just until Mummy’s finished with the soup?” she arched her eyebrows.

Lily frowned for a moment and shook her head. “I don’t wanna,” She murmured, almost whining as she said it.

Daisy felt bad for making her whine. She ran her hand along Lily’s back. “Okay, sweetheart,” she said. “What do you want to do? Should we watch another movie?”

Lily’s face scrunched, upset and she let out a whimpering sound that was somewhere crossed between a whimper, a groan and a whine. Daisy knew that part of the problem was that Lily was bored even though she also knew there wasn’t a whole lot that her daughter could do until her body was up to the task.

“Hey,” Jemma said as she came into the living room and spotted them both on the sofa, Lily pouting and Daisy obviously doing her best not to frown as she worked on suggestions for what to do. She walked over and sat down on the edge of the sofa as Daisy scooted back to give her room. Lily didn’t move from her spot on Daisy’s chest, but she did look at Jemma, fixing her with the same downtrodden, crabby expression she had been giving Daisy off and on throughout the morning.

Jemma leaned over and kissed Lily’s cheek and brought her hand to rest near Daisy’s on Lily’s back. “How about we all go to the dining room to eat some meatball soup?” she asked. “After that we can take a shower to feel less icky,” she scrunched her nose and then smiled at Lily. “Maybe after dinner and a shower, we can play some games or work on your puzzle if you feel up to it?” she arched her eyebrows.

Lily still frowned but the meatball soup (her favorite, and a simply recipe they’d managed to get out of Hunter, no less) won her over enough to make her nod. She held her arms up for Jemma this time and Jemma took care in trying not to jostle Lily too much as she picked her up, kissed her cheek and moved to stand. Daisy climbed from the couch and followed them toward the kitchen. It took quite a bit of time to get Lily to eat just about a full (Lily sized) bowl of soup with half a piece of toast and some grape juice (that was watered down to keep from giving her too much sugar).

The meal made Lily a feel a little bit better at least. It made her tummy hurt less since it wasn’t practically empty anymore. It made her feel a little more awake too. Daisy and Jemma opted for using the bathroom in the master bedroom for shower time since Lily was used to taking baths in her bathroom. The three of them piled into the shower together, which at least made getting Lily clean a bit easier since one of them could hold her while the other washed her hair and took care with her little loofa to clean the rest of her off, being very gently around her lower abdomen and the still healing incision marks.

Once they were out of the shower and had dried Lily off, careful to ensure they had patted the incision points completely dry (per the instructions they were given), Daisy helped Lily into her pajama bottoms and then let her wrap up in her fluffy monkey robe, figuring it would be good enough for a pajama top for right now since they had dried her off with different towel and because she knew it would make Lily feel more comfortable since she always loved lounging in that silly thing. She wasn’t as hyper as her normal self, but by the time they had settled together laying down on the living room floor after Daisy moved the coffee table out of the way, working on a puzzle.

They had discovered a few months ago that Lily could be easily mesmerized by puzzles but she bored easily of the ones that were a small amount of large pieces and, instead, was content to toil away for however long it could take to get through a 100 or 200 piece puzzle. She would hum to herself and do that thing where she stuck her tongue out through the corner of her mouth when she was concentrating. It worked now, too, since putting the puzzle together gave Lily something to do. Jemma and Daisy were trying to do their best to make sure she didn’t lean, stretch, reach or strain too far while trying to pop the pieces into place to see if they connected properly. They reached to fit pieces together at her instruction and played random movies on the TV behind them for background noise. Every so often, Lily would scold Elvis for coming to investigate only to flop down with a mew and roll onto his back, swatting his legs in the air for attention and some ear scratches and belly rubs (something he only ever allowed from Lily, Jemma or Daisy).

It was a relief to see Lily acting a little bit like herself, giggling softly every now and then, engaging in conversation that was more than whimpers and whines of pain. Daisy and Jemma both knew it was going to be a long few weeks for them as Lily got back on her feet from the sudden emergency appendectomy. They knew she would get through it, it was just the toughing it out of knowing there would only be so much they could do to help her feel better.

Come bed time, neither Jemma nor Daisy had the heart to deny Lily’s request to sleep with them in their room. They were all for the duality of relief it provided, to let Lily take comfort in knowing she was safely tucked between them and also to allow Daisy and Jemma to keep an immediate eye on her without walking back and forth to her room to check on her when they couldn’t tell over the baby monitors if she was alright or not. It helped all three of them sleep a little easier that night.

\---

**March 23rd 2022**

By the end of February, Jemma and Daisy were breathing much easier as Lily had finally returned to her normal self. Her follow-up visits with Doctor Damani had gone well and she was cleared to return to all normal activities. Her incisions stitches had all dissolved and the spots had healed over. By the one month mark, aside from the small scars that would take some to disappear, it would have been impossible to tell, without being told the story of how it happened, that she had had surgery to remove her appendix a few weeks before that. In the weeks that had followed that, Daisy had had to fly out for a few missions, which had left her a bit overly anxious after what had happened. They had been relatively simple missions that had mostly gone according to plan and the ones that hadn’t, at least, hadn’t involved any major injuries or mishaps of any kind.

Daisy had returned from one of these missions, on March 23rd. When she had walked in the house in the evening, past dinner time, but before Lily’s bedtime, and announced that she was home, Lily had come careening for her in the foyer. Daisy had scooped her up into a bear hug and covered her in kisses before she asked with Jemma was. Lily had just finished saying that mummy was in the kitchen on the phone when they had heard the sounds of a sob. Daisy and Lily both looked in the direction of the kitchen. Daisy heard Jemma asking some garbled questions between her sniffles and attempts to clear her throat. She crouched down and set Lily on the floor and kissed her cheek. “Stay here for a minute, Monkey, okay?” She waited for Lily to nod and then stood and turned to quickly, but calmly, head down the hall into the kitchen.

Jemma looked up when she entered the kitchen and Daisy had enough time to make it to her side before she collapsed her weight into Daisy and cried a little harder. She pressed her face into Daisy’s shoulder and murmured something Daisy couldn’t understand. Daisy’s arms were wrapped around Jemma, holding her up.

“It’s okay, Jem, I’m here,” she assured as she carefully pulled the phone from Jemma’s hand. Jemma pressed her face into Daisy’s collarbone and a few more sobs escaped her before she could stop them. Daisy ran her hand up and down Jemma’s back as she put swayed slightly with her in their spot. She put the phone to her ear. “Hey, it’s Daisy,” she said anxiously into the phone.

“Daisy, it’s Art,” Arthur’s voice came through the other line. He wasn’t crying but his voice sounded a bit raw and he inhaled a sniffle.

Daisy’s eyes widened and she felt her heart start to race harder in her chest than just seeing Jemma so distraught had made it race already. Any number of possible scenarios – all of them terrible – tumbled through her brain at once. “Art, I just got home. What’s going on? Are you guys alright?” She asked as she cradled the back of Jemma’s head against her shoulder. Jemma’s arms wrapped around Daisy’s middle and clung to the back of her shirt.

Arthur sniffled again and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for the upsetting news,” he said. “I called to let Jems know that Gran passed away tonight,” he said.

Daisy wasn’t sure what she was expecting Arthur to say but, for whatever reason, it hadn’t been that. She felt the air sucked out of her for a moment as she wrapped her arm tighter around Jemma. “…H-how did it…” she cleared her throat and tried to figure out how to phrase her question. “How did she, um,” she stammered out again, closing her eyes and willing her heart to calm down and her brain to work. Though Daisy had assimilated easily into the Simmons’ family and frequently socialized over social media, the phone and video chat with Arthur and his family and Jemma’s parents often enough, it had been the Elder Lillian Simmons that Daisy had bonded most with over the years that they had been married.

Daisy had even managed to get Jemma’s grandmother set up with a touch screen computer specifically to let her video chat with them whenever she wanted to. It was set up so she could connect to them with ease and if she couldn’t for any reason, Daisy had only needed to go in with a remote desktop to get her connected whenever she wanted to see Lily or them. In the last few years, after Lilian mentioned in passing once that kids simply didn’t know the value of handwritten letters anymore, Daisy had made it a point to write Lilian a letter, just updating her on everything going on, whether or not it was something Lilian had already talked about over the phone or any other electronic. She made sure to send as many pictures in the envelope as she could, especially so after Lily had been born. Over the last year, she had included drawings Lily had done especially for her as well. Lilian had written her back on every single one of them. Jemma had told her often about her father telling her all about how much she gushed about receiving the letters from Daisy. Lilian had even been the one that had stepped in to talk some sense into Mr. and Mrs. Simmons after Jemma and Daisy had first told them about their impulsive Vegas wedding, when Jemma’s parents had been a bit freaked out about it.

The last they had seen Lilian in person had been over thanksgiving when she had joined Jemma’s parents, Arthur, Alice and their kids on their visit to the states. Despite her age (98), anyone outside the family would have thought she was in her 70s, tops. She had always been energetic (a trait that Lily had clearly inherited from her along with the freckles, hazel eyes and nose shape that both Lily and Jemma shared with her), healthy, fit and spry for her age she had been using a cane off and on for a few years, but other than that, there was no reason that would be lingering in the back of anyone’s mind that this was something that could happen to a ninety-eight year-old at any time.

“It was a brain aneurysm,” Arthur replied. “Mary, she ah,” Lilian’s live-in maid, who was in her fifties and had been living and working there for thirty years, originally with her ten year old son at the time, Mary, had been almost like one of Jemma’s extended family members since she had been around since Jemma was around Lily’s age. “She heard something break and went to check on her and found her.” Arthur said. “Doctors say there was no chance she would have survived it and she likely was gone the, ah…by the time she was on the floor.”

Daisy was silent on the other end of the line as Jemma tried her best to rein in her emotions with little success. She cleared her throat after a moment and felt her eyes beginning to sting. “T-thanks for calling to…to tell us,” She stammered a bit. “We’ll be there as soon as we can,” she told him. There wasn’t a chance that they weren’t hopping on the soonest flight Daisy could find to head to England. “I’ll email you details on our flight soon as I have them.” She added. After another moment of speaking on details, Arthur and Daisy hung up. Daisy put Jemma’s phone down and wrapped both of her arms around Jemma.

“I’m sorry,” Daisy murmured into Jemma’s ear between kisses against the side of her head. Lily, ever curious, had slowly trekked down the hallway and peeked her head around the corner. She was watching her parents with confusion as they stood together in a huddled mass, sniffling, each crying, though Jemma as crying harder than Daisy. Lilian was one of the lucky ones, that group of people who had been granted a long, full life of adventure, excitement and love. Knowing that, though, didn’t make the loss any easier. Daisy held her close with one arm and ran her hand over Jemma’s hair and along her back between the kisses to the side of her head.

Jemma sniffled. “I’m sorry,” she murmured as her breath hitched while she kept crying. “I just…I j-just…I wasn’t ex…expecting the news,” Her shoulder shook as she leaned back into Daisy’s shoulder and cried harder again.

Daisy shook her head and wrapped her arms tighter around Jemma. “I know,” She assured. “I’m right here,” she promised. “I love you.”

Jemma was in the middle of echoing the sentiment back to Daisy as a murmur into her shoulder when Lily had finally approached them and wrapped her arms around them at thigh level, in an attempt to join the hug, pressing her face against their hips. Jemma sniffled as she and Daisy leaned back slightly to look down at her.

“M’sorry, Mummy,” Lily said, unsure what she could be sorry about, but since her mummy was crying, she felt bad even though she didn’t know why.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Jemma breathed out. She sniffled and leaned over to scoop Lily up into her arms. She kissed Lily’s cheek and brought her to rest at her side. Daisy pulled her arm out to wrap it around both of them instead of just Jemma.

“Why are you sad?” Lily asked as she reached a little hand up and wiped off one of Jemma’s cheek. The sweet gesture only made more tears roll down Jemma’s cheeks.

Jemma was still reeling from the news and she was at a loss for how to explain what had happened. She glanced at Daisy as she sniffled again and could see her own sadness reflected in her wife’s eyes. Daisy cleared her throat though and kissed the side of Lily’s head. “Lily,” Daisy waited for Lily to look over at her and tried to do her best to keep her voice steady. “Do you remember what happened to Casey’s grandpa a few months ago?”

Both Daisy and Jemma had tensed at the question. Casey’s grandfather had had a stroke and while they would have talked with Lily about what had happened since Casey would have obviously talked about it around the, they had had to try to explain a bit more than they otherwise would have since it happened out in Walker’s driveway. He had started to recover in the hospital and then had had two more and had passed away. Daisy wrapped her arm tighter around Jemma and Lily.

Slowly, more confused and a bit fearful now, Lily nodded. “Ya-huh,” she said. “His head was bad,” Lily pointed to the side of her own head.

Jemma held on tighter to Lily and she looked back and forth between her parents, confused about what was happening, but aware that she should probably be sad too, though she didn’t know why. Daisy nodded. “That’s right, his brain didn’t work right and he had a stroke. The doctors couldn’t patch him up like they can for a lot of other things. Do you remember what we called it when that happens?” She asked. Lily nodded but didn’t say the word, ‘dead.’ It had seemed scary when they had talked to her about it before and it seemed like it was scary now too.

“Good girl,” Daisy cleared her throat and kissed the side of her head one more time. “Sweetheart, just like Casey’s grandpa...Gigi,” she paused at the common term that was decided upon for Lily and Alastair to call their Great Grandmother and swallowed the lump of emotion in her throat. She didn’t bother stopping the tears from welling in her eyes though because she was afraid that Lily would recognize that she was trying to hide her emotions and she didn’t want Lily to think that was a healthy way to grieve. “Gigi Lilian was very old and sometimes when people get to be as old as her, their brains they don’t work quite right anymore either. Earlier tonight,” Daisy sniffled and went on. “Gigi’s brain stopped working and...the doctors, they couldn’t patch her up either,” Daisy paused so she could lift her hand up to Jemma’s other cheek when Jemma ducked her head and let out a choked emotional sound just shy of a sob, just to let her know she was there. “Because of the problem with her brain, Gigi died. That’s why me and Mummy are upset,” she kept her eyes on Lily, watching as the little girl tried to process what Daisy was telling her.

At first, Lily’s eyes welled with tears and Jemma adjusted her grip on her as Daisy ran her hand along her back. Almost as suddenly as Jemma had started crying earlier, Lily started crying too. Jemma and Daisy started to sway with Lily as she buried her face in Jemma’s shoulder. They exchanged a glance and both tried to start murmuring reassurances that it was okay to be sad and to cry about what they just told her, that she could ask them anything she wanted to, that everything was going to be alright.

It took quite some time, to be able to taper the tears and emotions off. Lily refused to be put down after that so Daisy and Jemma took turns passing her back and forth as they tried to pack while looking up plane tickets. It wasn’t until almost two in the morning that they were finally on a plane headed for London. Daisy had insisted that they spend money on upgrading their seats so they would be able to sit by themselves with Lily in their laps for the long flight. Thankfully, they were able to sleep for a large chunk of it before they arrived and Arthur picked them up at the airport.

They spent the week with Jemma’s parents, going through paperwork and procedures, handling the wake and the funeral, taking turns talking at length with Lily and with Alastair as honestly as possible about what happened and what was going on. There were easily a lot of tears. Daisy spent a large amount of time bringing up the happier stories she remembered of Lilian to break up some of the sadness with the fond memories of her favorite war stories, of the different ways she had shown them all that she loved them. Arthur and Alice had initially tried to explain everything to Alastair by saying that Lilian had ‘gone to sleep and not woken up,’ since they didn’t think he’d be able to comprehend the full scope of what had happened. When Jemma and Daisy had talked about explaining to Lily what happened to Casey’s grandpa, they had decided that this kind of approach was a bad idea and would likely scare Lily into thinking she might never wake up when she went to sleep. Sure enough poor Alastair had been plagued by some measure of anxiety about going to sleep. Daisy and Jemma made sure to explain to Lily that that was not what had happened to Lillian and that Lily would not go to sleep and not wake up.

To say it had been a very long, exhausting week for the small family, well, it would have been a massive understatement.

\---

**April 10th 2022**

“ _What is all this_?” Daisy asked with a chuckle. Today was their sixth anniversary. A work-related emergency had sidelined their plans to go out for dinner so they had ordered pizza after picking Lily up from the Walkers’ place on their way home. After dinner, Jemma had blindfolded her and the two of them had led her, each one holding one of her hands as they pulled her along, outside and around the house (she assumed) into the backyard for some kind of surprise.

When Jemma removed the blindfold, she was greeted with a backyard home movie set up in the warm spring night. There was a makeshift wooden frame standing in the grass and weighted down with a large white sheet stapled tightly to it for a screen. In the grass set some feet back from the homemade screen was a blown up queen sized air mattress, piled heavily with a number of different sized pillows and cushions and one folded blanket she knew would get tucked all around them. Behind their seating area stood a small folding TV tray. There was a projector on it with Jemma’s computer sitting next to it. A long outdoor extension cord ran from the table through the grass to the outdoor socket on the wall to power them both. Daisy suddenly knew where Jemma had disappeared off too midway through their meal when she excused herself to the bathroom.

“It’s a surprise Mama!” Lily answered as if it was obvious, tugging Daisy by the hand toward the mound of cushion/pillows/mattress.

Daisy chuckled and let herself be pulled over that way. Jemma grinned at the scene. She let go of Daisy’s hand and grabbed the blanket before she stepped around the seating area and turned on the projector. Then she moved to climb into the middle of the curved seating are on the mattress, patting the spot between her legs for Daisy to join her.

Daisy hooked Lily under her arms and scooped her up. She crawled into place, settling between Jemma’s knees. She brought Lily to rest in her lap leaning back against her chest and then sat back against Jemma, leaning into her embrace. Jemma shook out the blanket and once they were settled against her, she brought it down around their laps and then wrapped her arms around both of them. “So this is a surprise, huh?” Daisy asked, grinning as Jemma kissed the edge of her jaw.

“Mhm,” Jemma nodded and kissed the spot at the back of her jaw once more. “Are you ready to see it?”

“Absolutely,” Daisy took a moment to lean back toward Jemma’s shoulder where she turned her head and stole a proper kiss as Jemma was angling for another kiss to her jaw.

“PLAY IT MUMMY!” Lily cheered excitedly from her spot in Daisy’s lap.

Daisy and Jemma both chuckled. Jemma reached into her pocket for her phone, swiping through until she found the remote app for the computer and she hit play. The video began playing, displaying for a moment a cue card that read Jemma and Daisy’s names and listed their anniversary date of April 10, 2016. The video itself was a long string of photos displayed for a handful of seconds at a time on the screen, of videos, some with audio some without, while various love songs by Elvis ( _Can’t Help Falling In Love, Surrender, Unchained Melody, Love Me Tender_ , etc) played over the quiet videos and photos, faded into the background so some of the videos with audio could play. The compilation held all sorts of photos of them together, of them with the team, of the rest of the team, their family, with Jemma’s side of the family, at holidays, random candid photos or videos, silly faces, all manner of the massive amount of photos they had over the last few years of Lily, of Jemma leaning her head against Daisy’s swollen belly while she was pregnant with Lily and coaxing little kicks and swats out of her, of all the different random times spent with Lily over the last few years, recordings of individual videos of family members, friends, team members, all talking to the camera about Daisy and Jemma and the ways they look at each other, the way they work together even when they’re fighting, wishing them a happy anniversary, etc, etc. The video was lengthy and it covered everything from when Daisy had first joined the team on the bus up through some photos from just a couple of days ago of Daisy and Lily asleep on a play mat on the floor of the living room with toys all around them, both making almost identical sleep faces, mouths hanging agape, cuddled up strewn about each other.

Daisy hadn’t lasted more than thirty seconds, at max, before her eyes had filled with tears that had started spilling over as she watched, the three of them laughing at certain pictures of videos as it played. Her eyes were glued to the screen and she replied whenever Lily pointed out something she remembered from the groupings of photos and videos. It was one thing, when Daisy needed cheering up, to seek out Jemma or Lily for a hug or a kiss or to sort through the photos and videos she had stored on her own phone so she could remind herself of amazing life that she had, that she fought for, that she loved more than anything she had ever thought she loved or cared about before in life. It was a whole other plane of emotion to see all of it laid bare before her, a long winding, mostly chronological airing of undeniable proof that not only had Daisy found her true family to love, but that they had found her, that they loved her without pretense or condition and, most of all, that not only was Daisy worthy of being loved but she, Jemma and Lily alike were loved in excess.

As the video came to an end, with a video of Lily saying it was the end and babbling out a ‘Happy Anniversary!’ to them before rushing toward the camera and smudging the lens with an enthusiastic kiss, Daisy was pressed back into Jemma’s embrace, holding onto one of the hands Jemma had around her and Lily. Jemma leaned over and kissed the side of her head as Daisy sniffled but didn’t bother wiping off her cheeks. She had a soppy grin plastered on her face as Lily suddenly began worming about in her lap. Daisy loosened her arms around her and Lily turned around, a big proud grin on her face and moved to kneel in Daisy’s lap so she was eye level with both Daisy and Jemma.

“Did you like it Mama??” Lily asked, frowning when she saw the tears even though Daisy was smiling. She reached up her little hands and wiped at Daisy’s cheeks. “Why you crying?” She pouted.

Daisy chuckled. “Yes, I loved it!” She assured, leaning forward so she could kiss Lily’s cheek. “Because it was lovely and I’m happy,” She answered Lily’s second question. “Did you help?” she asked around a sniffle.

Lily nodded. “Lots!” She grinned and looked at Jemma for conformational proof.

Jemma grinned. “Yes she did. She was a perfectly little helper monkey,” She teased, reached around Daisy’s arms to tickle Lily’s side.

Lily giggled and dropped forward to burrow into Daisy’s chest and collar to hide. Daisy couldn’t help but chuckle as she wrapped her arms around Lily, doing her best to rest them around Jemma’s arms which were still tucked around the two of them as well. She leaned back and looked over at Jemma. “Thank you,” She said before leaned over to deliver a few lingering kisses.

“Happy Anniversary,” Jemma grinned between the last two kisses.

Daisy was halfway through echoing the comment back at her when Lily squirmed in her lap again and interrupted. “Can we play it again??” She asked them.

Jemma and Daisy both chuckled. “You heard the boss!” Daisy grinned and stole one last kiss from Jemma. Jemma grinned and restarted the video, settling back in with the two of them as Daisy leaned her head back to rest against her shoulder and the edge of her jaw.

“I love you,” Jemma murmured after turning her head once more to kiss Daisy’s temple.

“Yeah,” Daisy murmured as she pressed closer to her. “I love you too, nerd,” she grinned as Jemma snickered against her hair and kissed her once more.

\---

**May 5th 2022**

“Okay, Lily, are you ready to pick out a card for Mummy?” Daisy and Lily were in an enormously large greeting card section of a store. Daisy was holding Lily at her hip and waiting to set her loose on the cards.

“Ya huh!” Lily nodded and produced a big toothy grin spread across her face.

“Okay!” Daisy moved to set Lily on her feet but crouched behind her and held her by her sides to keep her from bolting. “Now, remember the rules, Monkey...you can pick _any_  card you want for Mummy, but the first one you touch is the one we’ll take for you to give her. Ready?” She asked. Lily waited a moment and then she nodded her head repeatedly. “Annnnnd _go_!” She cheered.

Lily set off. She careened around the aisle back and forth, looking at all the colors of cards as she went, reaching toward some, but stopping and running. Daisy bit her lip to stifle a snicker and took a few short videos of Lily trying to pick a card out. Finally, she settled on a card and tentatively reached out to grab it.

“Is that the one you want to grab for Mummy?” Daisy asked as she crouched down behind Lily.

“I like it!” Lily declared with a nod.

Daisy let a cheshire sized grin spread across her lips. “She’ll love it,” she said as she pulled the card and its corresponding envelope from the slot with one hand and scooped Lily back up with her other arm.

\---

**May 8th 2022**

“Go wake Mummy up with your card, I’ll be right up with breakfast,” Daisy handed Lily the greeting card from the other day, all sealed up in its envelope after she had helped Lily sign it on her own.

“OKAY!” Lily cheered, taking the card in both hands and racing away with it.

“NO RUNNING ON THE STAIRS!” Daisy called after her, figuring it would possibly give Jemma warning that she had an approaching howling monkey.

Lily raced her way to the stairs, paused at the bottom of them and then looked around the railing toward the kitchen. When she thought the coast was clear, she raced her way, fist over foot, up the stairs, causing loud thumping stomps on each stair.

“I HEARD THAT!” Daisy shouted.

Lily was cackling as she raced down the hall and into the master bedroom. She quickly scaled the foot bench at the end of the bed. “MUMMY WAKE UPPPPPP!” She shouted as she launched over the footboard, onto the mattress then tripped and landed on her hands and knees on the mattress (and on top of her card).

Jemma had started to shift in her sleep when she heard the shouting from downstairs. The cackles Lily let out made her crack her eyes open and she was fighting off a smirk as Lily scaled the bed. She arched her back and leaned up on her elbows just as Lily face planted into the mattress. “Lily, are you alr-,”

Before Jemma could get the question out, Lily scrambled back up onto her bare feet and raced across the mattress only to launch herself into Jemma’s arms as she screeched out a, “HAPPY MUMMY’S DAAAAAAAAAY!”

Jemma was snickering by that point as she wrapped her arms around Lily and scooted to sit back against the headboard. She kissed Lily’s cheek and smiled. “Thank you, sweetheart,” she said.

Lily let go of her neck and leaned back to sit against Jemma’s lap. Jemma slipped her arms around Lily to try and keep her still while she sat there. “This is for you!” Lily declared as she held the bright pink envelope up under Jemma’s nose with both of her hands.

Jemma widened her eyes. “For _me_?” She gasped. Lily nodded repeatedly and Jemma grinned. “Thank you!” she reached for the card and pulled it out of the way so she could plant a kiss attack across Lily’s face as Lily giggled madly.

Jemma opened the card as Daisy was making her way from the stairs, down the hall and into their room with a large tray of breakfast food and enough utensils for all of them to share. Jemma opened the envelope and pulled the card free. It was a white card with a picture of a bunch of heart shaped and star of David shaped balloons of different colors on it. The strings of the balloons were connected to the words _’mazel tov,’_  and inside it had a very neatly printed congratulatory note on her bat mitzvah along with some very messily scrawled words in what Jemma could only assume was Lily’s handwriting with Daisy’s very casual assistance, reading: _Happy Mummy’s Day! I love you very much! Love, Lily_. It was followed by a number of sloppy drawings Lily had no doubt worked tirelessly on.

Jemma was wholly unprepared for this card. By the time Daisy walked over the threshold with the tray, she was laughing hard enough that tears had sprung to her eyes. Lily knew laughter was good but she hadn’t expected that much of it. “Do you like it?” She asked Jemma.

Jemma tried to catch her breath. She set the card down on the bed next to her. “Like it?” She asked and Lily nodded. Jemma placed a hand on either side of Lily’s face. “Darling, I _love_  it, thank you!” She leaned over and bumped her nose to Lily’s before she kissed her cheek and pulled her in for a big hug, still snickering.

Daisy grinned as she climbed into the other side of the bed and put the tray of food between their legs. “Happy mother’s day,” She smiled.

Jemma smiled as Lily settled in her lap again but turned to face Daisy and the food. “You too,” she leaned over to kiss Daisy. She looked at Lily. “Want to go get Mama the gift we got her?” She asked. Lily nodded and Jemma leaned over to set her on the floor. Lily promptly race out of the room and toward her own.

“No running in the house!!” Daisy called after her before she looked over at Jemma again and grinned.

“A bat mitzvah card, really?” Jemma asked, chuckling again as she picked it up.

Daisy beamed a proud grin over at Jemma. “I gave her very specific rules when she said she wanted to pick out a card for you by herself,” she said. Jemma arched her eyebrows. “She was allowed to pick _any_  single card she wanted to, but had to select carefully because whatever the first one she touched was, it would be the one we bought.” she leaned toward the nightstand and grabbed her phone so she could show Jemma the videos. “She was very methodical,” She said as they both laughed over the video on the phone before Lily returned so they could enjoy their breakfast in bed.

**\---**

**May 17th 2022**

The first time it happened, Daisy was in Guatemala. There had been reports of targeted attacks against a family of Inhumans and the team had been sent in to investigate. Daisy, Joey and Mac had been there for three days now, surveying the sites of the attacks, talking with victims that survived, with witnesses and the victims’ families and friends, anyone who would talk with them. Daisy had hacked her way through into a number of footage feeds for security cameras that she had then rewired and sent back to HQ for the team to analyze while they were working on questions and their investigation protocols.

After a particularly gruesome viewing of a body that had been found – this one was not Inhuman, but had been mistaken for a different victim and had clearly met an untimely end for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and looking like someone else entirely – floating in a nearby lake, the three of them had decided to take a few hours to unwind at a local bar. They grabbed some food and some beers and bounced ideas off of each other without drawing too much attention to themselves.

It had been when Daisy was making her way back from the restrooms to their table that it happened for the first time. Squeezing through the thickly crowded makeshift ‘dance floor’ (Aka the open, clear floor area of the bar), Daisy had stopped in her tracks, people dancing and singing along to the music playing from the speakers. Her eyes had landed on him, standing still in the crowd, eyes as dark and steely as his black hair, blocked occasionally by groups of happy drunk revelers. She would never forget his face. She saw it frequently in her nightmares. Ward.

The color had drained from her face and her heart had immediately begun to race. _It can’t really be him_ , she told herself. _You’re seeing things_. She had only had two beers over the last hour they had been in the place – that wasn’t enough to hallucinate, not for Daisy anyway. A crowd of dancers blocked the man and Daisy dropped her shoulder and immediately started shoving her way through the crowd in Ward’s direction. She spared a glance to the table Mack and Joey were at, just to make sure Ward hadn’t done anything to them. When she turned back in the direction he had been standing, he was gone. She knew Ward was a slippery slime ball, but he couldn’t disappear that fast without a trace.

Daisy looked around in all directions but couldn’t find him in the crowd. She turned back and double timed it, picking up speed and momentum as she forced her way through the crowd of people, earning shouted comments and in some cases, shoves and attempts to grab her for her actions. Mack spotted the commotion and he and Joey were quick to make their way out after her. Daisy made it through the crowd and made a beeline for the front doors and outside. She looked back and forth up the street. She jogged down to the closest alleyway on the right but there was no one there. She ran to the closest intersection and spun in a circle, looking every direction. Nothing. She had just run back to the alley and made her way down it to look up at the single fire escape on it, wondering if Ward had gone that way.

“Daisy!” Mack called. Daisy stopped and looked down the alley. Mack came jogging toward her with Joey close behind. “What’s going on?” Mack asked.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Joey smirked. His smirk fell off his face and he looked around them in the alley as he realized that could be an actual possibility, considering the Inhuman factor. “You…you didn’t see a ghost, right?” He asked. Mack rolled his eyes and sighed. He looked at Daisy and arched his eyebrows though.

“No, I…” Daisy’s brow furrowed. She glanced up at the fire escape again as if it held the answers for her. She frowned as she turned her eyes to Joey and then Mack and then the ground. “I think…” she cleared her throat and ran her hand through her hair. “I think I, uh...I’m more exhausted than I originally thought,” she looked up at Mack. “I’m gonna head back to the hotel…”

Mack frowned and Daisy could see that he knew she was holding something back from him. Still, he nodded. “We’ll head back with you,” He said and Joey nodded in agreement.

\---

**May 23rd 2022**

The second time it happened was at a carnival.

Daisy had been home from Guatemala for three days. They had done all they could on the case and had sent in substitutes from the team for fresh eyes. Daisy had been frustrated that their major leads had all turned into dead ends. At the same time, she was relieved to be home. Lily had been begging Jemma and Daisy to take her to the fair in town every time they had driven by it and today Jemma and Daisy had finally been able to work it into their schedule. They had dinner at home and then had ventured out to the fair, which was only a few miles from their house.

Lily was beyond hyper. She had experienced funnel cake for the first time when they first arrived. Then Jemma and Daisy had convinced her that they should walk around to see everything they had so Lily could decide what she wanted to do. No surprise to either of them, Lily wanted to do _everything_. It was tall order, but Daisy figured who was she to say ‘no,’ to a request like that when Lily was excited. These were the kinds of things Daisy didn’t really get to do as a kid so experiencing them with Lily meant she got to experience them for the first time and with a bubbly, happy little bundle of hyper joy. They went on all the rides Lily could stand, the ferris wheel, the merry go round, the fun house, the swings, the bumper cars, even the teacups here Lily and Daisy had spun their cup so fast that Jemma had almost tossed her cookies (or, funnel cake, rather) while they cackled madly. They stopped and played at some of the game booths and won a poor goldfish by lobbing a ping pong into a fish bowl. They stopped and got their faces painted into different animal faces, gorged on cotton candy, kettle corn and snow cones. They mingled with some of the neighbors and Lily’s friends they ran into. They went into the small petting zoo area. They did everything the small fair had to offer.

Daisy had, this time, gone all the way back from one end of the fair to the other to grab Lily’s sweat jacket, which had been left behind at the teacup ride (after the third time Lily and Daisy, sans Jemma, had gone on it). On her way back toward the other end of the fair, and, essentially, the exit to the parking lot where Jemma and Lily were waiting for her, she saw him. He was off a ways away from her but Daisy stopped in her tracks. This time, she could see the sneering smirk on his scarred face as their eyes met, as if to say, ‘ _Look at you – you’re pathetic._ ’

Ward turned his head and Daisy followed his eyes to find Jemma standing off talking to the Walkers. From her direction, Daisy could see Lily and Casey talking while Lily held her new fish in his clear water-filled bag temporary home. She could see from Ward’s point of view that he couldn’t see Lily. But how long had he been watching them? Ward turned back to her and quirked up jut his right eyebrow as if to ask Daisy what she was going to do. He turned and started at a steady pace toward Jemma.

Daisy’s heart stopped and jammed into her throat. She was frozen for just a few painful beats before she took off at a sprint through the fair, weaving around people, strollers, pets, leaping over rubber trip covers meant to keep people from tripping over exposed electrical cords, eyes on Ward. When she thought she was close enough, she screamed Jemma’s name. Jemma, Lily and the Walkers all looked up to see a panicked Daisy (sweating her panda face paint away slowly) rushing their way. Jemma immediately began looking around for danger when she saw Daisy’s face. She reached out and laced her arm around Lily, pulling her to her side.

Daisy looked toward Ward again and…he was gone. Again. Jemma’s eyes found Daisy again and she turned to look in the direction Daisy had but came up with nothing unusual. Winded and freaked out, Daisy skidded to a stop next to the group. She turned all around, looking for any sign of Ward.

“Mama, what’s wrong?” Lily asked as she took Daisy’s hand.

Jemma frowned. “What is it?” She asked quietly.

Daisy was gulping down breaths of air, pale and sweaty. She bent over and leaned his hands on her knees. Was she really losing her mind? Is that what was happening to her? How was she supposed to explain a hallucination like that, happening more than once?

\---

**May 31st 2022**

Daisy and Jemma hadn’t been in to see Doctor Rhoads for a few months. Sometime after Halloween they had decided to only go on an as-needed basis should one arise. After Guatemala and then the carnival, Daisy had been struggling with what she assumed were some kind of subconscious anxiety issues. Just two days after she had lied about the reason she had chased across the fair toward Jemma and Lily, she had gone on a pre-scheduled trip to Washington DC with Coulson, May and Bobbi for some official meetings with a handful of senators.

Daisy had once again spotted ‘Ward.’ Or, at least, she had spotted the looming figment of her imagination, in a crowd of tourists covering the steps of the Jefferson Memorial monument. He had made eye contact and then slipped through crowds of selfie-takers, up into the monument. Daisy had glanced at the others and the senators’ security details. She had told Bobbi quietly she was going to check something out and had slipped away from the group to make her way up into the monument. There weren’t too many places to hide inside but Daisy checked every single possible place she had access to before Bobbi had come to check on her. Daisy had called it a false alarm and, thankfully, Bobbi had left it at that.

She had seen her hallucination of Ward twice more in their two days in DC, including once that had led Daisy to chasing down the mirage through a crowded press conference. She was on camera tackling a man (who actually did have very similar features to Ward upon close up inspection) and her only saving grace was that he had multiple weapons on him and had indeed been planning an attack, which Daisy had thwarted.

When they had returned home on the 28th, Daisy had been an antsy mess. Jemma had asked her multiple times if she was alright while they were at work. On the ride home, before they had picked Lily up from spending the day with the Walkers, Daisy had asked Jemma if they could schedule an appointment with Doctor Rhoads. Jemma had almost pulled the car over she was so shocked by the request. She had managed to keep her composure as she had glanced at Daisy at a red light and spotted her fidgeting and staring at her lap. Jemma had simply nodded and reached over to take one of Daisy’s hands, assuring her that they absolutely could and she would call to schedule it once they made it home.

Now here they were, sitting in the two cushy chairs across from Doctor Rhoads’ desk while Daisy shifted nervously in her seat like a caged animal looking for an exit. Jemma wasn’t sure what was going on. She was under the assumption that the whole uproar with the press conference had gotten to her since the press were particularly interested in trying to hound her for information (to the point that Daisy had repeatedly go online to make sure all possible ways to contact them or find their address in any way were scrubbed from being any way searchable online. That wasn’t something completely unusual as she periodically had done this just to be safe but the number of times Jemma had witnessed her do it in the last couple of days had thrown up a few red flags for Jemma.

Daisy felt like she was losing control of her mind. She wanted to ask for help. The whole reason she had braved asking Jemma to schedule an appointment was because she wanted to confess what had been happening, what she had been seeing. She was afraid of how they would both react. She swiped her tongue across her dry lips and shifted in her seat as Doctor Rhoads and Jemma looked at her expectantly. She could feel the beginning signs of beaded sweat as they started on the top of her forehead.

Jemma, slowly so as not to startle Daisy since she was so jumpy lately, reached over the arms of both of their chairs and gently slipped her hand inside of Daisy’s and said, “Daisy…whatever it is, we’re here to help you figure it out.”

Daisy frowned down at their joined hands. She cleared her throat and glanced at the doctor. She considered a retreat, telling them that she was fine and it was a mistake to waste the doctor’s time. Then she looked at Jemma and the concern that had tensed all across the muscles of her face, boring into her from Jemma’s hazel eyes, it stalled Daisy urgent want to flee. She dropped her eyes to their hands again and took a steadying breath.

“I-I, ah…” Daisy cleared her throat once more and kept her eyes drawn down in guilt. “I’ve been, um…I’ve been seeing things…” She unconsciously squeezed Jemma’s hand a bit tighter as she made the partial confession.

Jemma arched her eyebrows but Daisy wouldn’t look at her. “Seeing things?” She asked as she did her best to keep from letting her thoughts run too wild.

“What kind of things have you been seeing, Daisy?” Doctor Rhoads had shifted in his desk chair to sit up straighter. He was writing on the legal pad on his desk as he asked it.

Daisy brought her eyes up to the scribbling pen in his hand. She hated this. She hated that it was happening to her, that her brain was having some kind of glitch in the Matrix. She hated that it made her squirm to had Doctor Rhoads writing stuff about her on that piece of paper when she knew he was only going to try and help her with her problem. More than that, she hated the fear that she saw in Jemma’s eyes when she finally hazard glancing at her. Her throat felt like a desert after a sandstorm.

“Things th-that aren’t actually there,” Daisy answered. Her brow came together in the middle and she shifted her gaze back to Jemma’s hand in hers.

“Is it the same thing every time you see it?” Doctor Rhoads asked. Daisy nodded as Jemma squeezed her hand. “How many times have you seen it?”

Daisy hesitated. “Uh…” she clenched her jaw and closed her eyes, counting in her head. “Five, I think?” She answered.

“What is it?” Jemma asked her quietly. “What are you seeing?”

Daisy frowned. She avoided looking at the doctor. Her eyes were shining when she looked Jemma’s way, welled with tears, filled with fear since she had no control over this, didn’t know what caused it and had no idea if it was something she could fix. “Ward,” she whispered the name.

Jemma’s eyes widened. She was silent for a long time, letting the confession sink in. When Daisy looked over at her, she could see the fear there in her wife’s face. She gripped Daisy’s hand tighter. “…Is that what happened at the carnival?” she asked, not accusing or judging, just trying to assemble all the signs she had missed over the last few weeks.

Daisy swallowed against the lump in her throat. “Yeah,” she answered again in a whisper. A moment later the floodgates of confession unleashed and a torrent of apologies to Jemma for lying to her about it and hiding it from her tumbled from her mouth as she fought to keep the welled tears from falling from her eyes. Jemma shook her head but couldn’t get a word in so, to reassure Daisy, she let go of her hand and leaned over to pull Daisy in for a hug. Jemma glanced over at Doctor Rhoads over Daisy’s shoulder as Daisy leaned into her.

There was a part of her that wanted to ask Daisy why she hadn’t just told her about what she was seeing, but a larger part of her recognized that that line of thought was childish. So instead, she kissed the side of Daisy’s head and stroked her hand over her hair. “It’s okay,” she promised. “We’ll figure this out with you, Daisy,” she promised.

\---

**June 3rd 2022**

_Daisy awoke to darkness. The first thing she recognized after fishing her phone from her pocket to turn on the screen for light, was that she was in a trailer of some kind. She turned the flashlight of the phone on and discovered she was in the back of what she could assume was an eighteen wheeler's attached trailer. Daisy let the panic surge through her for a moment. How had she gotten here? The last thing she remembered was settling into bed for the night with Jemma. Daisy spun at once and then turned a few circles in the long trailer, but there was no one else in there with her._

_"Don't panic, Daisy," she murmured to herself. "Breathe. Think. How did we get here?" She couldn't recall at all. So her next plan of action was to get out. Daisy turned off the flashlight and stowed her phone once she was at the trailer door. She was prepared to blast her way out with her powers and dive out, ready to fight but when she pushed on the doors, they opened without struggle. Daisy was greeted with the faint sounds of...a carnival?_

_Her brow furrowed as she climbed out of the truck and to the ground. To her left was the edge of what looked like a wooded area. in the general darkness of the area, lit only by a set of contraction night time lights that were fifty yards away to her right, Daisy couldn't tell for sure if they were at all recognizable. To her right were all manner of trucks and trailers, some emptied, some of them RVs that the workers of this carnival perhaps lived in? At a distance, Daisy sized it up to be about the length of a football pitch and a half away, there was what looked like a Big Top tent, surrounded by smaller tents, lights and the sight of people milling about the area._

_Daisy pulled her phone. She could check the GPS for location coordinates and call for help from the team. No matter what she did this time, however, her pass code wouldn't work and her usual work around for it wouldn't either. Daisy frowned and glanced at the carnival in the distance, mentally chiding herself for that time she had let Mack and Hunter talk into joining them for their viewing old horror movies, among them one from the sixties titled, **Carnival of Souls**. Daisy shuddered to herself and sighed. Resigned, she stowed her phone in her back pocket and cautiously made her way toward the carnival. The boisterous sound of music and chatter began to fill the air as she approached. With each step closer, the muscles in Daisy’s gut tensed with apprehension._

_Daisy hesitated when she reached the edge of the carnival’s grounds. Something in her said she should turn back even though she had no other options for finding a way out of where she was at the moment. That’s when she saw him. It was the back of his head, walking away through the crowds – the tents of performers, the people milling about. With a single focus on her mind and a clenched jaw, Daisy pushed forward. She dodged the carnival attendees, dodged the employees at the different tents and stands trying to pull her to them, calling his name as she followed him. With a last dive forward, she managed to grab his arm by the elbow. “Face me, you coward!” She shouted. She froze when she was met with a melodramatically painted mask of an old timey clown that shared some of Ward’s features. Daisy dropped her grip on his arms and staggered back as the man leaned way back and let out a bellowing cackle of laughter from his belly._

_She stumbled back again, brow furrowed in confusion and tripped over one of the tent post poles and fell back, landing on the ground propped on her hands behind her. Others joined in the howls of laughter. It was then that Daisy noticed almost all of them were wearing similar masks. The masks matched face she recognized, mostly people who were no longer with them, friend and foe alike. What the hell was going on? Daisy could feel her heart pounding in her chest as she scrambled to her feet. **Exit!** her brain screamed at her, **FIND THE EXIT!**_

_Daisy ran._

_She dodged those calling her name and reaching for her, ignored the riddles they howled after her, stumbled and tripped and dragged herself right back to her feet. She ran for what felt like it had been at **least**  the length of a football field and when she stopped, winded, and looked around her; she was in the exact same spot she had started._

_Daisy took a step back from the crowd that was moving her way up the lane between the tents. She bumped back into someone and spun around only to come face to face with the Ward clown. Daisy tried to back up but the others pushed her toward him again. Daisy brought her hands up in front of her, ready to blast through the being in front of her. Ward bellowed out a laugh. He pulled the mask free and beneath it she saw the full scope of what it was covering on his face and neck. Ward, with his actual face painted the way the mask had been, bore all the injuries Daisy had given him when she had killed him. His neck hung open in the shreds she had torn it into, his face was covered in bruises and bloody cuts, when he turned his head up to laugh, she could see bone, collar bone and vertebrae. She could see his exposed vocal chords shook together as in a ghastly bloody show of vibration when he laughed._

_“You’ve come all the way,” Ward sneered, “Are you going to leave before the show’s begun?” His voice came out in a grizzly singsong lilt of torn gravel._

_Daisy stared, wide eyed and bewildered. Ward reached for her and Daisy turned, blasting a burst of shockwaves through the crowd behind her. She raced through them and dash around the path before ducking into one of the tents. She turned around and pulled the curtains shut as the crowd rushed past, all of them calling her name in singsong tones like something from a creepy horror movie funhouse. Her brain fought to keep up with what was going on but before she could collect her thoughts, a voice behind her spoke._

_“I wondered when I would see you again.”_

_Daisy turned around, eyes wide as she spotted Raina. Daisy had ducked into the fortune teller’s tent. Rain pulled back the hood of her cloak, revealing her thorn covers face and hands. She had a silk headscarf on that was covered in flowers. Jangling bangle bracelets and floral rings adorned her wrists and fingers. She sat at a small round table, complete with a crystal ball on it._

_“…R-raina?” Daisy’s brow furrowed._

_“Won’t you come sit?” Raina waved to the seat across from her. “Cronos is scarcely patient, it’d be a pity for you to make this journey and miss the message…” She leaned back in her seat and gave Daisy a slow smirk. Daisy glanced over her shoulder at the curtained entry way. “Worry not, they shall not bother you, at least not till we’re through,” she waved Daisy over._

_With slow, stiff steps, Daisy crossed to the chair and sat down on the edge of it, shifty and prepared to bolt. At this closer proximity, Daisy could see the dark maroon stain on the front collar of Raina’s cloak, coming from her neck. Daisy flinched as she remembered the moment she witnessed Raina receive the wound that caused her death. “Raina…”_

_“Do not waste that which is not yours to give,” Raina cut Daisy off. Daisy marveled at the way Raina was able to speak clearly when Ward hadn’t been. She opened her mouth to ask a question but Raina silenced her and began dealing tarot cards on the table, eyes bouncing between scanning them and the crystal ball next to her hands, muttering, “Mmm….mmhm….mmhm….oh dear…” in loops. If Daisy hadn’t been so freaked out, she would have made a snarky comment about Professor Marvel from **The Wizard of Oz**. But she was fucking freaked out. She couldn’t think straight._

_Raina finally looked up at her, her eyes seemed almost vacant, though there was a wicked smile drawn up her lips. “Three little birds are trapped in a cage, one little bird plucked free and thrown from the stage, tsk, tsk, tsk,” Raina intoned false sympathy as she clucked her tongue and sung the rhyme out. “Two little birds remain…” Daisy blinked, the words didn’t quite make sense but they immediately brought the crush of emotion and pain she felt after she woke up and found out Carter had…Daisy blinked at Raina continued. “Two little birds have once again become three, tragically ill aware of the vultures circling for thee…Two little birds, one about to die, only one to hear her painful cries. One little bird, brought to hide, the last one left into a trap she’ll fly,” Raina’s eyes came back to her as her hand slammed down onto the table, which caused a bewildered Daisy to jump from the chair, knocking it over behind her as she did._

_“It’s been set in motion, Daisy,” Raina seemed to have actual remorseful pity in her eyes for Daisy now._

_“W-what?” She asked._

_“Two bodies have I, those both joined in one. The more still I stand, the quicker I run…” Raina replied._

_Daisy’s brow furrowed. She knew that one. Where had she heard it before? One of Sister McKenna’s riddle books maybe? “…Hourglass?” she asked, unsure. The roar of the chasing crowd was returning._

_“Fly away little bird…” Raina replied in song. Daisy blinked as the noise came closer. “RUN!” Raina suddenly bellowed angrily. Daisy spun and rushed out of the tent. She turned to her left but the crowd was there. They spotted her and began sprinting her way, giggling maniacally as they did. Daisy turned to her right and ran until another crowd turned and found her. She spun and ran in another direction. It was as she spotted the big top tent that she realized what was happening – they were corralling her. They wanted her inside. Daisy ran and ran, trying to avoid the big top at all costs._

_She was about to blast her way through a crowd of clown-masked angry mob when she was tackled from behind. Before she knew what was really happening, Daisy was pulled off her feet and carried over the crowd by their angry hands, singing gleeful songs about catching their prey as she tried to break free. They marched her into the tent and Ward took over, throwing her over his shoulder. He marched into the center ring of performance. The lights were out but Daisy could hear a roaring crowd, cheering as she was dumped into one of two spot lights currently on, next to the ringmaster._

_Scrambling to her feet, Daisy looked over at the ringmaster and froze in her spot. “M-Mom…?” She breathed._

_“LADIES AND GENTLEMAN!” Jiaying barked to the crowd. There was a bright smile on her face, which was cracking apart in places. Her limbs seemed to swing almost as made by thick rubber rather than muscle, bone and sinew. “BOY AND GIRLS! FRIENDS!” She turned to Daisy, eyes dark and cold. “ENEMIES! INHUMANS AND ALIENS ALIKE!” She shouted to the ever loudly cheering crowd. “WELCOME ONE AND ALL…TO THE GREATEST SHOW IN THE KNOWN VERSE!” Jiaying paused. She began circling Daisy at a slow, wobbly pace, dressed in a colorful frilly circus ringmaster tux and top hat. She had a baton in her hand and her voice carried with a booming amplification whenever she spoke to the crowd._

_“WE WILL NO PRESENT FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT, THE MOST STUPENDOUS, MAGNIFICENT, SUPER-COLOSSAL SPECTACLE!” Jiaying glared over at Daisy and Daisy felt herself shrink under her mother’s gaze. “WE ARE HONORED TO PRESENT TO YOU TONIGHT – OUR ONE AND ONLY MOST MAGNIFICENT SHOW – THE SCALES…OF THE GODDESS MA’AT!” With that, the spotlights cut off and there was nothing surrounding Daisy but the crescendo of a bloodthirsty crowd._

_Daisy was suddenly lifted over a shoulder again. She fought to get free as she was carried from, she assumed, Ward’s grasp. When he threw her down, she landed on her ass on solid ground but the ground sunk below her and she threw her hands out for balance. When the lights suddenly burst one in full force, Daisy threw her hand up the back of her palm shielding her eyes as she squinted against the sudden blinding light. As her vision began to clear, she looked around her. She was on a round platform held to a bar by three ropes. Her eyes followed the bar only to discover that the platform she was on was part of a gigantic scale._

_Across from the platform she was on, raised in the air higher than the one she was on, was an identical platform. Ward threw a large burlap, wriggling, burlap sack onto the other scale platform. Daisy’s platform moved as she scale adjusted and she wound up thrown to her hands and knees. When she looked up at the platform and Ward standing on a podium behind it, she noticed that he had a pair of blood orange colored metallic, almost bronze if it weren’t for their color, horns protruding from his thick, spiked black hair. He grabbed the end of the bag and unceremoniously dumped what was inside it out._

_Daisy’s eyes widened as all the air was sucked out of her immediately. On the other platform, Jemma and Lily sprawled onto platform’s surface. Lily was sobbing and Jemma’s eyes were wild, her face full of fear and she quickly scrambled to gather Lily in her arms, trying to cocoon herself around Lily to protect her. “No…” Daisy gasped. At the top of the scales, standing on a raised platform above the middle bar of the scales, was Jiaying, ready to announce the details of the show. “JEMMA!” Daisy screamed._

_When Jemma swiftly turned her way, her face darkened, her expression pulled taut and wrought with accusation as she held onto their daughter. Jiaying was dressed, now, as an Egyptian goddess, with a long black wig, a red dress, colorful rows of jewels adorned her neck, her upper arms, wrists and ankles. She held a long green staff in her hand and tied to her head was an ostrich feather, her other hand held an ankh. Long feather wings hung, connected along her back like sleeves to the rings on her upper arms and wrists so that they swung dramatically through the air when she gesticulated as she spoke._

_“WELCOME TO THE COURT OF MA’AT!” Jiaying barked. “TONIGHT WE TRY THE IMMORTAL SOUL OF THE WRETCHED DAISY JOHNSON! LEADER OF THE UNWANTED! FAMILIAL TRAITOR! VILE, SELFISH MURDERESS! A BLIGHT TO ALL THAT I PERSONIFY IN TRUTH, JUSTICE, BALANCE, LAW AND ORDER!” She waited for the crowd to settle. Daisy stood, head bent upwards to stare at her mother in horror._

_“IT IS YOUR DUTY, MY GENTLE COURT, TO RETURN TRUTH AND HARMONY TO OUR REALM THROUGH FINAL JUDGEMENT OF THE ACCUSED!” The crowd roared. “LISTEN CAREFULLY AS HER TRANSGRESSIONS ARE WEIGHED AGAINST HER BENEVOLENCE – JUDGE WITH STRENGTH BUT NOT HASTE!” Jiaying warned. “FOR THE PRICE OF THE ACCUSED’S CRIMES WILL BE RENDERED UNTO HER FAMILY TO BEAR THEIR TRUE BURDEN!”_

_“What!?” Daisy looked from her mother over to the platform that Jemma and Lily were on. Lily was reaching toward her direction from Jemma’s arms and calling out for her. Daisy moved toward the edge of her platform in a rush and nearly tipped in before she caught herself. Jemma turned Lily away from her and into her shoulder. “NO! YOU CAN’T!” Daisy shouted at Jiaying. She turned to the platform again. “JEMMA! LILLY!” She looked all around for any way to escape the platform, which was perilously high off the ground, to find a way to get to their platform._

_“EVEN NOW, AS THEIR FATE LAY IN HER HANDS – BEHOLD THE CALLOUS AVARICE SHE DISPLAYS FOR YOU!” Jiaying barked. The crowd began to jeer._

_Daisy turned to Jemma and Lily, desperate to reach them. The look of betrayal on Jemma’s face silenced her want to cry out for her wife again. “How could you do this to us?” Jemma asked, her quiet question echoing through the tent. “We loved you!”_

_“Jem, I-,” Tears were falling steadily down her cheeks. She was just contemplating the merits of using her powers to throw Jiaying from her platform so she could make an escape. Her plan at the moment was the climb the rope of her platform and cross to the other scale. She could get to Jemma and Lily. She could. She **would**_

_Suddenly, Daisy was thrown off her feet as her platform dropped under a new weight. Ward, Trip, Raina and a number of clown-masked individuals behind them Daisy briefly recognized as having similar features to people who had been hurt or killed either directly by her over the years or because of her. Jiaying announced her sins as they were thrown on the platform, sinking it farther and farther away from Jemma and Lily. the last one to be added was thrown directly from Jiaying down to Ward – who cradled the small bundle in his arms, cooing at him in the graveled, gristly growl of his mangled voice._

_Daisy was frozen in her spot. Carter. Her blood boiled as she realized Ward was holding her son. “Put him down,” she ordered through gritted teeth, stepping closer. Ward sneered in her direction as Jiaying issued and order. Raina and Trip were suddenly at her sides, holding her by her upper arms. Daisy struggled against them. She turned to Trip, who looked like an old porcelain doll that had been crazy-glued back together one too many times after being shattered. Tears slipped out of his eyes and trailed through the dusty surface of his face. Parts of his hands crumbled each time she struggled. “T-Trip…” She stammered._

_“I’m sorry,” Trip whispered._

_“DAISY JOHNSON!” Jiaying bellowed. Raina and Trip turned her to face where her mother was standing. “JUDGEMENT HAS BEEN CAST AS THE SCALES OF CLEARLY SHOWN!” Jiaying looked past the lights to the crowd. “DO YOU AGREE?” She paused and a great cacophony of sound roared through the air. Daisy was steadily crying now. She looked back and forth between her mother and the platform Jemma and Lily were on, pinned by Trip and Raina, helpless. “THE ONLY SUFFICIENT PUNISHMENT TO BALANCE THE SCALES YOU HAVE DRENCHED IN THE BLOOD OF OTHERS,” Jiaying barked out._

_“PLEASE!” Daisy screamed. “DON’T DO THIS!”_

_Jiaying looked from the terrified, shaking forms of Jemma and Lily over to Daisy. “CHILD,” She bellowed. “ **I**  AM NOT THE ONE WHO HAS DONE THIS!” She replied. She nodded to a some soldiers and the scales shifted slightly as they entered the platform Jemma and Lily were on. Jemma set Lily down and pushed her behind her to shield her, holding onto Lily’s arms to make sure she didn’t fall off the platform. Daisy struggled violently against Raina and Trip as she screamed their names. Jemma fought two of them off but as the scales tipped with the weight of more guards, they overwhelmed her. Jemma screamed for Lily to throw her bubble up and run. There were only so many places to run on the open platform. Daisy threw her palms in the platform she was one and it shook with the force of the burst of vibrations she sent at it. Raina and Trip’s hold on her broke free. Daisy threw her hands up and knocked five of the eight guards off of the platform. Just as Jiaying was braying on about Daisy continuing her destruction, Daisy threw her hands up and forced a blast of shockwaves toward her platform, throwing her from it without a second glance. She raced toward the edge of the platform just as Jemma was leaping to catch Lily as she was tumbling over the edge. Both of them went falling toward the solid ground below. Daisy made it almost to the edge and prepared to leap after them._

_“DAISY!” A hand clamped around her arm and shook her harshly._

_“LET GO!!” Daisy sobbed, straining to dive after Jemma and Lily._

_She turned and held her other hand up, planning on blasting the person – Ward, it turned out – away from her but the voice that came out when he shouted her name wasn’t his this time. It was Jemma’s. “DAISY! WAKE UP!” Ward’s freed hand jammed into her chest from the bottom of her rib cage. She felt his hand close around her lungs and she suddenly could no longer breathe._

“DAISY!” Jemma called out. When Daisy had started tossing about in her sleep, it hadn’t quite pulled Jemma out of the deep slumber she had been in after a long day. It wasn’t until she heard Daisy shout her name from her own slumber that she awoke. It took Jemma a moment, fumbling in the dark, to turn the lamp on the night stand on and then a moment more to realize that Daisy was having a nightmare, thrashing about and shouting in her sleep. The bed began to shake with the telltale beginnings of uncontrolled tremors as Daisy shouted about having to go after someone. Jemma clamped a hand around Daisy’s arm and began shouting her name as she shook her to rouse her. She put her other hand on Daisy’s cheek. “DAISY! WAKE UP!”

Daisy’s whole body lurched off of the bed as her eyes shot open and she sat bolt upright in bed. Her pupils were blown so wide in fear that Jemma couldn’t see her irises at all. She was drenched in so much sweat it looked like she had just come out after a dip in a swimming pool. She was gasping to try and get breath and had started hyperventilating. Her body shook uncontrollably with fear, her face was flushed red from the elevated blood pressure brought on by the surge of adrenaline her fear had released.

“Daisy!” Jemma tried to get her attention since her gaze was still wild and far away, not quite fully awake yet. “Daisy! Breathe! Hey - hey, _Daisy_!” Jemma grabbed both sides of Daisy’s face, kneeling next to her, and turned her face to look at her, trying to force their gazes to lock. She wasn’t sure how she could shock Daisy back into herself and away from whatever nightmare that had just scared her so badly. Jemma had woken Daisy from nightmares before but she couldn’t recall any of them being this bad. “Daisy, it’s okay, it’s okay - you’re safe. It was a dream, it was a dream, you’re awake now,” Nothing Jemma said seemed to be getting through properly to her as she gasped for air. “ _Skye_!” Jemma, reluctantly, shook Daisy again by the shoulders. Daisy stilled slightly, aside from the gasping, and stared at Jemma’s face. Jemma brought her hand back to Daisy’s cheek and dropped her other hand gently to Daisy’s chest. “You’re awake. Everything’s okay. You’re safe. It was just a dream,” She promised her wife.

Daisy had already had tear tracks on her cheeks but her eyes filled with fresh tears as her brain finally caught up to the fact that she was awake, in their bedroom, in their house, that Jemma and Lily were safe and that she had been in a dream - the last of which she hadn’t realized while she was in the dream even as her sole goal had been to get to Jemma and Lily to protect them.

“It’s okay,” Jemma assured her, pulling her in and wrapping her arms tight around her. Daisy buried her face into Jemma’s collar and wrapped her arms tight around Jemma, fisting handfuls of her shirt in a fierce grip. Without being ably to stop herself, she began to cried, shaking in Jemma’s arms, gulping air down between the muffled sobs against Jemma’s collar. Jemma stroked a hand over her hair and along her back. “I’m right here,” she promised. “You’re okay. We’re okay. It was just a dream Daisy, I promise,” She repeated the assurances over and over, refusing to move until Daisy had exhausted her tears and herself. Jemma was relieved that it hadn’t managed to wake Lily through all of it. She managed to coax Daisy into their bathroom and peeled them both of their clothes before pulling her into the shower with her.

Once she had them clean, she wrapped her robe around herself and sat Daisy on the closed toilet seat to try and comb her hair before getting to her own. She changed the sheets on the bed since they were went and found them a blanket to use for the night before she pulled Daisy into bed with her, still reassuring Daisy the whole way, holding onto her, only giving up physical contact when she had changed the sheets. Daisy was pressed tight into her chest, arms wound around Jemma, holding on. She sniffled every so often and even expelled a post cry hiccup or two as Jemma ran her hands soothingly over her hair, along her arms, up, down and around her back and sides.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Jemma asked, though she was sure Daisy would decline. She put the offer out there anyway.

Daisy inhaled a deep breath and let it out a staggered exhale. “I...I don’t know how to...i-it was...it was, um…” She took another steadying breath.

Jemma kissed the top of her head. “Take your time,” She said gently. “I’m not going anywhere." Slowly, Daisy began to recount parts of her dream. Jemma did her best, while listening attentively, to keep her touches constant and gentle, reassuring and soothing as Daisy recounted it all. It was awful, the parts Daisy told her. She let Daisy take as long as she needed to tell her about all the details she wanted to, offering up small comments and repeatedly reassuring Daisy that it was just a dream and that they were alright. Neither one of them returned to sleep that night.

\---

**June 13th 2022**

“She thinks I’m insane,” Daisy mumbled as she picked at the large mandarin chicken salad she had ordered from the restaurant she and May were having lunch at.

“That doesn’t sound like the kind of Simmons reaction I know,” May pointed out as she cut some of her steak into bite-sized pieces while looking across the table at Daisy with that solemn concern in her eyes.

Daisy frowned and dropped her eyes to her salad. “Maybe not after the doc appointment, but after the nightmares…” she exhaled a frustrated sigh.

“Nightmares?” May arched an eyebrow up.

Daisy looked up and across the table. She had been sure that Jemma would have talked to some of the others about that, since Jem had talked with some of them after the appointment with Doctor Rhoads (though she had been given Daisy’s permission for that, however reluctant she had been to issue it). She nodded. She had had six of them in the last ten days. Four of them, Jemma had had to forcefully shake her awake from and the other two had left her bolting out of bed before she had even fully woken up from them, covered in sweat with her heart hammering so hard she had nearly fainted each time.

“Recurring or different each time?” May asked.

Daisy shifted in her chair, uncomfortable. “Recurring,” she answered. She looked up when May didn’t speak only to see the older woman sitting across from her with her right eyebrow arched upward in question. With great reluctance, Daisy took a deep breath and began to recount the dream as May listened intently, an impassive expression on her face.

\---

**June 16th 2022**

“I worry that she thinks I’m harboring some kind of secret…pejorative thoughts about her,” Jemma said as she paused in twirling the pasta on her plate to take a small sip from her wine glass. Coulson sat across from her at the restaurant they had gone to for dinner after they had gone to interview a scientist at a nearby pharmaceutical company. Certain situations that made Jemma anxious made her insatiably hungry than stealing her appetite and, at the moment, this situation was causing that issue. “As if I haven’t been through my own emotional degradation down spirals that we’ve had to get through together – if anything I’ve had more than Daisy has,” Jemma paused a moment, wondering if it was just that Jemma’s had been more projected outwardly than Daisy’s had been and that was the real reason for the skewed balance of their varying emotional problems with all they had been through together.

Coulson watched her as he made his way through his own meal at a slower pace. “Everyone has a different process for coping with situations that have enough weight to overwhelm them,” He reasoned. “Daisy’s always had a different way of dealing with hard situations.” He pointed out.

Jemma frowned thoughtfully at her plate as she twirled a forkful of pasta around it. “I suppose you’re right, but, then again,” She lifted her eyes to Coulson. “Not dealing with it and pretending it didn’t happen isn’t really a coping mechanism, is it?”

“That’s true,” Coulson conceded. “At the same time, she has made fair strides in changing that about herself as you’ve both grown together over the years,” he pointed out. Jemma considered that a moment. “Do you think, five or six years ago, that she would have come to you so soon after something started happening to her to ask for help _and_  to do so while involving Doctor Rhoads in the mix?” Coulson asked.

Jemma let out an abrupt snort of laughter. “Absolutely not,” she shook her head and then paused.

Coulson smiled, “Exactly.”

\---

**June 17th 2022**

“Did you talk to Doctor Rhoads about what Simmons told you?” Phil asked, shuffling his feet to keep pace with her as she pulled him toward the bathroom of their room by his tie, which she was working to unwind after having loosened it.

“Mhm,” Melinda hummed and nodded, pulling the silky material free and letting her hands move to the buttons of his shirt.

“Good,” Phil nodded, “That’s good.” He murmured. He watched her face as she untucked the bottom of his shirt to finish with the buttons. “Do you think we’re making a mistake in not considering the possibility that Daisy’s not hallucinating?”

Melinda paused, her hands halfway through the process of unhooking his belt as he finished sliding his shirt off and removing the white t-shirt that had been under it. “I think we have plenty of time to discuss this topic in the morning when we’re back at work,” she decided as she stepped back from him while pulling the tie on the silk robe she was wearing. She turned away and let the robe slip from her shoulders and off her arms as she went to the shower and stepped into the steady stream of hot water, assuming Phil would follow.

And who was he to prove her wrong? Deciding to leave the serious talk behind, he peeled his way quickly out of the rest of his clothes and stepped into join her in the shower.

\---

_**June 21st 2022** _

Lily’s best friend, a little girl named Casey that lived along their street and was few months older than Lily, had turned three today. Her parents had a birthday party at a place in the next town over. It was a small farm that had a petting zoo and a couple of carnival rides. They even had bounce houses and the like. Daisy had stayed to help keep the kids under control while they ran around and played, high on sugar from cotton candy, cake and juice, screeching like hyenas as they whizzed by chasing each other.

By the time the party was dwindling down, Lily still had energy to burn. Daisy was crouched down in front of the antsy little girl, trying to get her to hold still so she could re-tie one of Lily’s shoes. Lily was bouncing on her toes practically, excitedly talking and telling her mama about all the things she did at the party even though Daisy had witnessed nearly all of the things lily told her. Daisy smiled and stifled a chuckle at Lily’s antics as she nodded and listened, inserting ‘Uh huh,’ and ‘He/She _did_!?!’ whenever appropriate.

When she finished tying Lily’s shoe, she gave her daughter’s sides a quick light pat and nodded. “Go thank Mrs. Walker for all the fun you had today and tell Casey Happy Birthday and then we’ll race to the car, okay?” Daisy arched her eyebrows with a grin.

Lily’s eyes widened. “YEAHHHHHHHHH!!!” She squealed as she went racing off across the field by the bounce houses over toward the picnic tables where Casey’s mother was busy pouring juice for a couple of the other kids. Daisy jogged slowly after her to catch up. By the time she reached the picnic tables, Lily had scaled up onto the bench of the picnic table and then onto the table itself and took a leap into Mrs. Walker’s arms. Both Mrs. Walker (Deidre) and Lily were giggling as between bouts of Lily thanking her and professing how much fun she had had. As soon as Casey’s mother set her down, Lily raced to a nearby table and threw her arms around her friend to wish her a happy birthday.

“I’m so sorry there was so much sugar for her to get into today,” Deidre laughed as she watched them after Daisy came to a stop next to her.

Daisy chuckled. “I’m sure bath time tonight will either be chaos or she’ll have crashed and it’ll be a chore just to keep her awake,” She joked. “Do you need any help gathering anything and packing it up?” she asked.

Deidre waved a hand and shook her head. “Oh, no please! You’ve done enough, sticking around to help me tie shoes, wipe faces and keep a headcount,” she laughed.

Daisy thanked Deidre for inviting Lily and the two shared a quick hug before Daisy went to collect Lily. She kissed the top of Casey’s head and coaxed an enthusiastic high-five out of her as she wished her a happy birthday and then hooked her hand into Lily’s to head for the car.

When they were close enough that she knew no one would be pulling out of a spot or coming down the lane, she raced Lily the rest of the way to the car and proceeded to launch a tickle attack against her sides until Lily was giggling madly. She scooped Lily up and brought her to rest against her hip, with one arm resting around her. She leaned over and peppered Lily’s shoulder and neck with kisses and blew a raspberry or two into the crook of her neck to keep her laughing while she unlocked the car door.

Once Lily was all hooked into her car seat, Daisy brought her face level with her daughter’s and smiled. “Did you have fun today?” She brushed some of Lily’s hair out of her face as Lily finished catching her breath from all the giggling. Daisy was relieved to see that Lily hadn’t wound up with any sunburn from running around outdoors all day since it meant Jemma wouldn’t have to lecture her about proper sunscreen application, which she had been sure to reapply even before Jemma had texted her through the day about it. Lily nodded as she let a few more giggles out. Daisy grinned. “Good,” she leaned in and kissed Lily’s cheek. “Let’s get this show on the road, Monkey!” She grinned and climbed out of the back seat as Lily threw her fists in the air and cheered.

Daisy chuckled as she shut the back door and climbed into the driver’s seat. She brought the car to life and got her phone and the radio set up. She hooked her seat belt and checked the rearview to make sure Lily was okay in the backseat with Groot. Finally she put the car into gear and pulled out of the spot and then out of the parking lot and back onto the small road that would lead back to the highway on their way home.

Once they were on the highway, Daisy turned the volume up on the playlist that she had going in the car. She noticed a silver truck that seemed to be weaving through traffic about four cars back in a mirror of whatever lanes Daisy move to. Without stopping her and Lily’s sing along to the playlist, Daisy kept an eye on the truck in the rearview as she made a few calculated lane changes near a couple of exits that she wouldn’t take normally to go home.

If they were tailing her, they seemed to catch on to what she was doing and stopped mimicking her movements so much. Daisy thought she might be letting her anxiety and paranoid get to her after the last few weeks of thinking she had been seeing a dead man moving around town. She tried to shake the feeling of fear pulling at her gut as she and Lily launched into singing along to Queen’s _Bohemian Rhapsody_. Though she was still glancing back to check that they weren’t being followed, Daisy got into singing the song along with Lily, even though Lily was mostly thrashing about to the beat and singing gibberish sounds to the lyrics.

Daisy’s singing was interrupted with snickers whenever she glanced into the back at Lily’s sugar hyped drumming, head banging and the way her hair flew all over the place as she danced about in her car seat. Her phone began ringing through the speakers from the Bluetooth connection and Daisy hit the button on the steering wheel to answer it before she had time to turn the volume down since she knew it was Jemma calling to see if they were on their way home and to check up on them, to ask Lily if she had fun and so on.

“What is all that _racket_??” Jemma’s voice tinged with a combination of confusion, amusement and horror as she tried to figure out what was filtering through the earpiece of the phone pressed to her ear.

Over the odd sounds, the melodious sound of Daisy snickering filtered through into her ear and made Jemma smile, despite her confusion. There was music involved; Jemma could discern that much, at least.

“That,” Daisy finally replied, a few chuckles still escaping her as she glanced in the rearview mirror at the two and half year old strapped into the car-seat in the backseat who was wildly thrashing about, kicking her legs and swinging her fists as her hair flew in all different directions, as if they were actually in time with the song playing on the radio while Skye drove. They had just come from a birthday party and the little girl was more than all sugared up. Like clockwork, Jemma had called to check up on them while they were on their drive back home. Skye had hit the button on the steering wheel to answer the call and hadn’t had a chance to turn the music down before Jemma’s question had made her laugh. “Is the glorious sound of your daughter cementing her status as a bona fide rockstar.”

Jemma let out a laugh and Daisy could hear the unspoken Our daughter is not going to grow up to be a rockstar! that she knew Jemma wanted to let out. “What on Earth are you listening to?” She asked with a chuckled.

Skye let out a scoff. “Are you trying to tell me you can’t recognize Queen??” She asked with her own little indignant sound, though Daisy was mostly joking.

“TURN IT UP!”

The booming demand came from the little child in the backseat, who could scarcely pronounce half of the words in the lyrics despite already being able to pronounce scientific terms that Daisy still didn’t know half the meanings of to begin with. She was doing her best to mimic the words in broken gibberish while still swinging her limbs all around. Jemma laughed.

“You heard the boss!” Daisy warned before she turned the volume up just a little bit louder.

Soon Daisy’s laughter filled Jemma’s ear along with the music and the sounds of their daughter jamming along. For just a moment, Jemma was immensely sad to be in the lab on the bus instead of with the two of them. “Jem, hahahaha,” Daisy glanced in the rearview again briefly, wishing she could get off the highway and get to a well-timed red light to get some video of what was happening in the backseat. “She looks like a Muppet!” Daisy snickered. “Our daughter is Animal!”

 


	21. It's Complicated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Forewarning** : Anxiety. So much anxiety. That's all I have to say about that....
> 
> OMG I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS MOMENT IS ACTUALLY HERE!  
> This is the longest story I have ever finished in my life!  
> Between CH 20 and this I think my total words written in the last 3 weeks since the ch 19 upload is about ot just over 60k. That's insane, right?!?!  
> I did not realize when I first started this story that it was going to take the epic journey it did. 
> 
> Thank you so very much to everyone who has read this, who's left me kudos, comments and love, and who've continually come back to read more and in some cases reread! Thank you for putting up with my typos!! Thank you for sharing this with me and enjoying it as much as I have!  
> Thank you, especially to those of you who have helped me with research, constructive debate and just generally sharing your gushing over this brainchild with me! <3 <3 <3
> 
> ((It's  entirely possible I will be adding a final epilogue to this, am still deciding if I should or not))  
> Please always feel free to drop a line to say hello, to let me know what you think, to ask any questions you might still have, hell to prompt for future stories! <3 <3 :o)

**December 23rd 2022**

“Get us on the ground,  _ now _ !” Coulson shouted over his com link. “That’s not a suggestion – it’s an order!”

“Coulson,” May said his name, her voice was calm – her usual stoic mission voice. Her eyes, however, were glassy; a tell she couldn’t fight while also trying to bring the situation under control as Coulson was losing his mind shouting at the pilot.

“I don’t care how you do it – just do it, now!” Coulson argued.

“ _ Phil _ ,” May said, this time in a firm, commanding tone. She grabbed his arm and jerked it by the inside of his elbow to jar him loose from the emotional spiral he was currently swan diving into.

“Got eyes on anything?” Bobbi called to Hunter from her spot next to him. Both of them were lying stomach down on the open bay door of the plane with binoculars pressed to their eyes, scanning through the cloud of debris for any signs of life, flipping through filters on their binoculars for thermal scans – anything to try and find them in the dusty swirl of smoldering building debris below. Each of them was hooked in by their belts to the plane just in case they had to make any sudden turns, to keep them from flying off the open platform.

“Nothing,” Hunter answered, pressing some of the controls on the top of his set of binoculars to adjust the filter to help him see better through the mess for anything that might be moving in the heap of rubble below. “She’s survived a collapse before,” He said without breaking from his search even though he wanted to look at his wife to make sure she was alright.

“I know,” Bobbi said. It was her answer to tell him that she was alright while silently thanking him for the reminder even though thoughts of San Juan had rolled around her mind. Daisy had been able to protect herself from that collapse without even knowing she had gained any kind of ability. Then again, that particular collapse had, in technicality, been caused by her as well – unconsciously of course. At this point, Daisy had many years to develop all the ways she could use and control her abilities. There were still times when emotions could overwhelm her, but those times were few and far between and were tied to some extreme emotional situations and Daisy was very careful to ensure that she was contained when she felt them building with in her.

Bobbi had to believe that when she realized she couldn’t make it to the plane, Daisy had taken that flying leap of faith out of the building in an attempt to make sure she and the baby – there had definitely been a baby in her arms, there was no doubt whatsoever about that – weren’t buried so far under the rubble of the facility that the team wouldn’t be able to get to them. If it hadn’t been for Hunter grabbing onto her the back strap of her baton holsters around her shoulders, she would have been right next to Coulson on the desperate dive outward to reach Daisy. Instead, she and Hunter had rushed to get to May to keep her from falling and then to grab Coulson before his and May’s grip on each other gave and their rescue effort would have split to handle searching for Coulson in the debris as well. 

Coulson whirled to May when she tugged on his arm. “I need you at the controls if Morgan’s going to be insubordinate-,”

“ _ Phil _ ,” May cut him off in a stern almost scolding tone. “We can’t make our way down here. We’ll need to set down on more solid ground and make our way into the rubble on foot if we plane to be able to take off again once we recover-,”

“ _ Don’t _ ,” Phil’s voice came quietly at May’s comment. ‘Recover’ was used post-mortem. He refused to believe that was the case. He would have to see that with his own eyes to ever believe it, the way Daisy had needed to see Carter after he had told her that he was gone. That wasn’t happening today. They  _ would _ find Daisy. Jemma would  _ not _ lose her wife. Lily would  _ not _ lose her mother. Coulson refused to let that be the epilogue of today’s mission.

“She’s not responding to the coms, Phil,” May pointed out.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Coulson said as May gave his arm a squeeze.

“Phil-,”

“We’re  _ not _ giving up on them,” Phil cut her off. “Don’t ask me to. I won’t.”

May nodded. “I agree,” she insisted, tense and offended that he thought she was giving up on them. It was true that May had a realistic thought process about what they were going to find when they did find Daisy and the baby. She knew that Daisy was capable of surviving this kind of event, but she wasn’t going to let herself believe false hope without the gut check that it was entirely possible that the two of them had not survived. “But we can’t drop directly down there from here,” She said.

Coulson pressed his lips into a tight line and nodded. He ordered the pilot to find the closest place they could set down and then started issuing orders to the rest of the team for once they were on the ground.

\---

“Fifteen minutes and we should have a restored connection,” Fitz promised Jemma. He had been working feverishly for a few hours with Jemma and Alisha’s help to rig up a fix for the communication issue with the bus even though he knew it was unlikely he'd be able to restore it if there was an issue on the bus end itself, which it seemed like that was the likely case. Fitz did what he could, though, to keep Jemma from panicking.

Jemma chewed on a cuticle on her finger that was already worn and raw with the worry she had been gnawing into it for the last hour as she paced. She nodded. “Okay,” she nodded again. “Okay I’m…I’m going to try the mobiles again while I check on Lily,” She decided, even though Alisha had told her a few minutes ago that Lily was just fine in the common room playing. Both of them watched Jemma go as she pulled her phone from her pocket and started her phone tree again, starting with Daisy’s phone. Unlike before, when she figured their phones were silenced, this dial went directly to voicemail. Jemma tried to ignore the tug of fear that pulled heavy on the lump of fear in her gut as she hung up and tried to reach Bobbi this time. Bobbi’s phone rang but still went to voicemail. She tried to text May, Coulson and Hunter but received no response.

By then, she had reached the common room and when Lily spotted her, she immediately ran over to excitedly start telling her about a game she and Alisha had been playing. Jemma forced herself back into mom-mode and absently nodded as Lily spoke, trying to reply properly while she just wanted to scoop Lily up into her arms to pull her in and hold onto her for a while.

\---

“Coulson? May? Do you copy?” Fitz spoke into the microphone of the com he had rigged. At first the only answer was that of static accompanied by voices but both Fitz and Alisha couldn’t make out any specific words of recognize the voice they came from. “We couldn’t quite get that, can you hear us, over?” Fitz spoke again.

“Fitz?” It was May’s voice. “Fi…ear…e..?” Her words came through choppy but they could tell it was May at least.

“May!” Fitz replied in relief. “Oh thank god – are you alright?” He called back.

“Fitz? A…there?” May’s choppy reply came back.

“May?”

“Fitz? Can….ar…me? Are yo…ere…itz?”

“May! We can hear you but you’re breaking up!” Fitz called back. “Are you on your way back? Everyone alright?” The only response Fitz received was static. Fitz threw the microphone in frustration.

Alisha dropped her hands down to his shoulders to still him as he hung his head for a moment. Fitz took a deep breath and held it. A moment after pressing the heels of his hands into his closed eyelids, he took another deep breath and reached up to start fiddling with controls. “Breathe, Leo. Jemma’s on her way back,” she said calmly. Fitz steadied just a little bit and in the next moment, Jemma was coming around the corner and into the room.

“Any luck?” She asked, the picture of barely restrained anxiety; tensed muscles, fearful eyes, raw cuticles and worn worry spots along her bitten bottom lip.

Fitz frowned and turned his eyes back down to the equipment in front of him. He silently went back to work. Alisha squeezed his shoulders and looked up at Jemma. “The good news is we had a brief reconnection with the inner ear communication links,” She said. Jemma’s shoulder straightened as she braced for whatever came next. “The bad news “it was all static and choppy. We had May, but we couldn’t understand her – not sure if she could hear us either,” she said as she fixed Jemma with a sympathetic gaze. She had pulled her double away from the common room while Jemma was in there with Lily and sent her to fix up some lunch for the little girl while she and Fitz had worked on the com system.

Jemma’s shoulders slumped back down in resignation and she gave a small nod to acknowledge that she understood. She tried to remind herself that Fitz and Alisha had at least gotten some form of contact with someone on the team. That was something at least. It meant that the team was still active. Jemma could cling to the hope that they were alright while she also worried herself into a near panic.

\---

“How long will it take the rest of the other teams to reach us?” Lincoln asked as he, Joey and Mack worked on removing a particular area of rubble.

“Doesn’t matter,” Mack answered resolutely. Despite his condition, he continually sifted through debris, bending his knees and grunting as he hefted pieces of the building that normally would have taken at least two people to hoist and lugging them away. “Just keep looking.”

“You shouldn’t been exerting yourself in your conditi-“

“Less mothering, more sifting,” Mack barked, cutting Lincoln off. His physical condition was the farthest thing from his mind at the moment. They needed find Daisy. It was the only possible goal. So far, teams from Toronto, New York, Boston and DC had reached them. Their search was going on two hours. They had crews and machinery working to – carefully!! - clear rubble. All crews were calling out for Daisy as they worked, listening for a reply of some kind. The Boston team had even brought out search dogs with them to attempt to find Daisy quicker. All manner of advanced tech was being used to try and scan through the heap of still smoldering debris for signs of life…or bodies.

May, Bobbi and Hunter were working in an area a few hundred meters away from where Mack, Lincoln, Joey and a few of the members from the other teams were working. Bobbi had started out calm and steady. They had a job to do, a mission of great importance – find Daisy and get her back to solid ground and safety – and Bobbi damn well intended to complete the mission. As time passed and there came no response to the increasing number of shouts for Daisy to call out to them, Bobbi had slowly started to slip into a panic.

Her mind was a jumble of thoughts about having to tell Simmons what had happened to Daisy, about when they had lost Trip, about what would happen to Simmons and Lily, about her own life with Lance and all of the more intimate and less work-related things they had been discussing and considering over the last few months. Maybe she was wrong; wanting to change her stance that a family wasn’t something she could have while still being an agent. Daisy and Jemma had juggled it, through the thick of all manner of struggles, and they had prevailed. That’s what Bobbi had thought, at least, until just a few hours ago. Perhaps she needed to go back to her old ways of thinking, living under the rule of thumb that she was lucky to have Lance and lucky that they had gotten out of the jams they had over the years. Bobbi was lucky. Daisy…she didn’t know if Daisy’s luck had finally run out or not.

“Bobbi,” May’s voice reached through the mess of her mind and Bobbi blinked as she looked up from the debris she was roughly shoving out of the way. “Why don’t you take a water break?” She said.

Bobbi frowned behind her dust mask and protective goggles. She gave her head a shake. “I’m good,” she said, moving right back to the search. Hunter watched them from nearby but waited without commenting. May climbed over some of the rubble, pulling her dust mask free before she reached for Bobbi’s forearm with care.

“Bobbi-,”

“I’m not stopping!” Bobbi snapped and wrenched her arm around. It was about then that she realized May had made the suggestion because tears had been steadily rolling down Bobbi’s cheeks from under the protective goggles and down over the dust mask. “And she wouldn’t either if it was me down there either!”

“Bobbi,” May’s emotions were in check, despite the way her team had been falling around her, dropping into emotional wreckage almost as quickly as the building had fallen – and for good reason too. May refused to give into her fear and panic for Daisy’s (and the baby – the fact that there had been a baby involved had not slipped May’s mind, nor had the fact that she had thought she had heard Daisy say Carter’s name in those last few minutes before the collapse as well) condition. It would only hurt their progress in trying to find her and May wasn’t going to jeopardize such an important task. “It’s going to help her if you-,”

Bobbi scrambled over the rubble in the few feet between her and May and clamped a hand over the older woman’s mouth. “SHH!  _ Did you hear that _ ?!” She asked, eyes wide behind the goggles and head tilted in the direction she thought she heard the sound coming from. There was too much noise with everyone shouting for Daisy but the way May’s eyes widened after a moment let Bobbi know the other woman heard  _ something _ . May pushed Bobbi back from her carefully and reached for the whistle she had stowed in her pocket. She brought it to her mouth and blew out a succession of long loud notes to signal those in the area around them to fall quiet to listen.

Everyone within listening distance of the whistle stopped what they were doing and froze, straining their ears for any sound – any indication that Daisy was alive and trying to communicate with them.

Hunter was the first to move. “It’s a baby!” He shouted, scrambling up and over a ten foot mound of steel, cement, drywall and debris to get to the other side. After a long moment of silence, from the other side of the pile he climbed over, Hunter started shouting. “OVER HERE!” He grunted as he started prying every bit of material he could lift on his own away. “DAISY!” He called out, trying to get some kind of sound from Daisy rather than just the intermittent wails from the baby.

Just as suddenly as everyone working had stalled to listen for the sound, they all snapped into action, rushing over winding, smoldering rubble, scrambling over the twisted, broken landscape, to converge on the area around Hunter, hauling equipment with them, working together with the machinery to move as much of the mass as quickly as possible in an effort to make it to the wailing baby beacon.

\---

While Fitz and Alisha were working on the communication links, Jemma began searching through news feeds, the way she had seen Daisy do countless times. She continued trying to text or call any of the team in the field on their cell phones, hoping one of them would be able to answer. On a few of the lesser known back channels she began to see comments and stories popping up about an factory explosion and building collapse in Vermont at a manufacturing plant that was just north of Franklin – just shy of the Vermont/Canada border. Jemma kept sifting through the information and soon enough, overhead photos and video from passing helicopters and satellites began to crop up. Jemma studied them with increasing fear.

She had known that they were going to blow the facility, but those were shield teams on the ground working and most of the videos and photos didn’t allow for high quality zooming in allowing Jemma no way to obtain a headcount. The fact that the team was on the ground there after the explosion told her that someone from their team was injured. There were reports of search and rescue operations going on but there simply wasn’t enough information for specifics.

Jemma had convinced herself that she was combing this terrible information (or somewhat lacking of information as it was) because she was worried about the entire team and their safety. It wasn’t that she wasn’t concerned about them. She was. They were her family. But if she was honest with herself there was only one person she was frantically trying to zoom in on the photos and videos to find. The more information that was released, the further Jemma’s heart dropped out, bottoming out as it dragged the ball of fear in her gut into a deep well of panic. She had found May, Bobbi, Coulson and Hunter. She could speculate on some of the others, but there was no Daisy. There wasn’t even a single person she could find to try and convince herself they were set up to similar stature to her wife. Jemma’s attempts to contact the team became increasingly frantic and numerous as the need to hear Daisy’s voice and know she was alright grew exponentially with each passing second.

\---

After hearing the baby crying, even with all the manpower and effort they had around them, it still took another almost two hours to break, cut and free their way into the cavernous area where the baby’s cries had been originating from. Coulson, May, Bobbi, and Hunter had been lowered into the area and had spent the last twenty minutes cutting a large portion of reinforced concrete free. When it was finally broken free, enough to see into the area, the sight before them was a ghastly reminder of the way they had found Daisy in the woods earlier in the year.

Tucked into a small pocket of building that surrounded them, Daisy’s body was cocooned around the baby, who had been quiet off and on throughout the process but had started crying ten minutes ago when the sound of the power tools being used around them had frightened him. Though she was limp and unconscious, Daisy had wrapped herself around the baby in such a way that her body was protecting him and her weight hadn’t crushed him, but had kept him protected in her grip. Though there was much less blood from Daisy this time, there was still plenty of it. Some of it came from the left side of her forehead and had covered a large portion of her face. It was mostly dried now. Exposed areas of her arms, neck and shoulders were covered in all manner of cuts, scratches, scrapes and bruises. Her left leg was curled in, part of the cocoon protecting the baby, but the right one was stuck between two large chunks of rebar and concrete.

All eyes stared at the scene before them, paralyzed with fear for a few erratic heartbeats. May moved first, rushing to climb through the area they had cut into the space, with Coulson right behind her. May reached down and gently grabbed hold of Daisy’s shoulder. She had hoped it would cause a reaction but Daisy was completely unconscious. With great care, May reached in and pressed her fingers firmly against the side of Daisy’s throat, to her pulse point. She held her breath as she pressed her two fingers to the spot and held her breath. Apart from the baby’s wails, there was utter silence surrounding them.

“She’s alive!” May called out. Bobbi was already passing medical equipment through the hole. Coulson snatched the neck brace she passed through the space and moved to hand it to May. May’s fingers moved swiftly but carefully. She hooked the brace around Daisy’s neck to protect it and then carefully rolled her off of the baby and onto her side. Both Coulson and May froze for a moment as Coulson’s flashlight landed on the baby bundled up in Daisy’s jacket.

“Is that-,” Coulson exhaled a gasp.

“It is,” May carefully scooped up the baby into her arms, cradling him tightly to her chest as stood up, leaving Coulson to look after Daisy for the moment and knowing that Daisy’s first priority would have been Carter. She rushed to the hole and Bobbi helped her out.

“Is the baby alright?” Bobbi asked.

“Take him to medical. Bring Lincoln with you. We’ll meet you back on the bus soon as we can.” May answered. Bobbi nodded and turned immediately, she and Hunter made their way out through the debris, grabbing Lincoln on their way back to the bus, moving as quickly as possible. Bobbi held tight to the baby, doing her best to shush him and reassure him while trying not to inspect every inch of him for injury as she ran. Hunter led the way, steering her over and around the rubble to keep her from tripping, all the way into the bus and down to medical, shouting at people to move when they were in the way so that they could get the baby situated on an examination table to start assessing if he had any injuries at all.

May made it back into the area where Phil and Daisy were. Coulson hadn’t been able to wake Daisy but he had managed to wrap her head with a temporary bandage. He and May worked on freeing Daisy’s leg as quickly as they could without hurting her. They moved Daisy onto a backboard, covered her up with a thick blanket to try and keep her temperature from dropping any further. After they securely strapped her to the backboard, May and Coulson began to make their way back through the small hole, carrying the board between them and headed for the upper area of the debris pile. With help from the rest of the crew above, they brought Daisy up and out of the debris pile and raced her as quickly as the terrain would allow, back to the bus to start checking on her injuries.

\---

“Fitz?” the crackled voice came calling over the rigged speakers in the room sometime in the evening around nine o’clock. By then, Fitz had been sitting with his legs drawn up under the desk where his chair usually sat when it was pushed in. His failure to get into proper touch with the team had worn him to the point of uselessness. He had asked to be alone to work on the system. Alisha had gone with Jemma to the common room after Jemma put Lily down to sleep in her and Daisy’s old dorm. Jemma had multiple screens of news reports, photos and videos of the TV screen from different sources. They were being updated much less often now than they had been this afternoon.

Jemma was nearly catatonic as she stared at the information before her. Silent tears occasionally sprung to her eyes and sailed down her cheeks, leaping off from her chin and landing on her shirt. Her mind was a pool of suffocating swirls of runaway thoughts. Had agreeing to let Daisy go on this mission caused her to lose her wife? What if she had to tell Lily that her Mama was never coming home again? How would she explain that to their daughter? How would she be able to take care of Lily without Daisy? Would Lily still retain memories of Daisy as she grew up outside of photos, videos and whatever stories were told to her by other people? Jemma felt like she was drowning in her fear. How would she keep her head above the tide without Daisy? How would she function without parts of her soul, her entity, there with her?

“Fitz!...an…u hear me?”

Fitz realized he wasn’t just imagining things. He scrambled out from under the desk and snatched up the microphone. Pressing the button on the side down, he pulled it to his mouth. “Mack!” He cried. “Mack, I’m here!” He shouted in the next second. “Where are you? Can you hear me? Is everyone alright?”

“…low pow-…” Fitz listened to the crackling and frowned in frustration. “All oth…systems…erational,” Ftiz bit into his lip. “update…cell towers….in range.” Mack’s garbled reply came. “….u soon…ver and…out.”

The line ceased crackling after that and Fitz frowned. He paced for the next forty-five minutes before his cell phone finally began to buzz on the desk. He ran to the desk and snatched it up, shoving it to his ear. “Hello – Mack? Are you there?” He asked in a rush.

“Fitz, it’s May,” May’s reply came back. The reception still wasn’t the greatest but at least Fitz could hear full sentences. “We’re on our way back. E-T-A two hours, forty-five minutes,” she told him.

Fitz exhaled a sigh. They were on their way home! His brain kept cheering it over and over again; too relieved to hear the serious grave nature of May’s done. “Oh thank goodness – everyone’s alright, yeah?” he breathed another sigh of relief.

“It’s complicated,” May said. She began to give Fitz a rough rundown of what had happened and what was currently going on.

\--

Alisha looked up when Fitz walked into the common room. He frowned when he spotted the feeds on the television screen. “Fitz?” Alisha arched her eyebrows at the drawn look on his face.

Jemma jumped, slightly startled by the sudden interruption of her wild internal down spiral of anxiety. She turned and looked at Fitz as she moved to stand. “What’s happened? Did you reach the team?” she asked quickly.

Fitz licked his lips and nodded solemnly. “They’re on their way back home,” he said. “Should be here in about two and a half hours,” he nodded.

Jemma exhaled a sigh of relief and barely managed to choke back the sob she wanted to let out. They wouldn’t leave someone behind to come home if one of their team went down. In the rush to let the relief flow through her, she threw herself at Fitz and wrapped her arms around his neck and shoulders in a crushing hold. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Fitz!” Her voice cracked as the tears hit harder in the rush of emotional ups and downs of the day.

Fitz’s return hug to her was stiff and tense. He swallowed back against the lump that had formed in his throat. “There’s more,” He said, speaking in a soft tone that was heavy, laden with regret. Alisha came to join them around the back of the couch as she saw the apprehension on Fitz’s face.

Jemma’s muscles went rigid. She loosened her grip on him and leaned back. “W-what do you mean?” Her eyes searched Fitz’s and her heart clenched painfully in her chest. She could see by the look in his eyes that she had obviously let herself relax too soon.

\--

Daisy jerked awake. Immediately her eyes squeezed shut tight against the dizzy swirl of and flash of pain that shot around her skull. Her hand came up to the side of her head and she exhaled a groan of pain. Just as she was wondering what had happened, it came back to her – the last thing she remembered was running through the science facility to get to the bus before the explosives detonated. She remembered seeing Coulson running down the bay ramp with wide eyes and a terrified expression contorted across his face. Her watch had beeped and as the building had begun to blow apart from the bottom up, she remembered taking a leap when she knew she was too far away to both make it out of the building and land on the plane ramp. She had made it, just barely, to the other side of the hole in the side of the building but too short to land on the ramp since she had no arms to lunge with because she was holding-

“Carter!” The name came blurting out as she bolted upright on the bed.

Coulson made it to the bed a moment later and put a hand on her shoulder before she could push herself out of the hospital bed. “Easy. Daisy, it’s okay, just lay back,” He told her in a gentle tone as Daisy’s hands reflexively shot up to resist Coulson’s attempt to help her lay back down.

Daisy felt her head swim in delirium as the pain pounded through her skull, bringing with it a rush of fear and memories. This had happened to her before. This had happened to her when she woke up in the medical wing of the base after collapsing, after her fight with Ward…after Carter had died.

With a sudden surge of adrenaline and fear, in a single motion, Daisy pushed Coulson back from the bedside and was off the bed and on her feet, causing the IV that had been in her hand to pull free. She swayed from the resulting dizzy spell and the nausea that her memory of learning of Carter’s death clashed in her gut. Coulson reached out and steadied her by the outsides of her arms. He turned and looped an arm around her waist to keep her knees from giving out on her. Daisy struggled against him with the lone goal of finding Carter. The heart monitor behind her the bed was beeping out an erratic beat since the monitor was strapped to her arm for it and hadn’t pulled free like any of the other monitors

“Daisy -  _ Daisy _ !” Coulson called her name. “He’s okay!” He said quickly. Daisy stalled in her fight and turned her wide eyes up to Coulson. “He’s okay,” Coulson said in a gentler tone now that her attention was on him. “You got him out,” he assured as Daisy’s eyes welled over. “You kept him safe. He’s alright. May and Bobbi are with him.”

Daisy felt a rush of relief course through her, taking her adrenaline spike with it. Her eyes shook a moment and in the next, as Coulson told her that her son was safe, she choked out a sob and let her weight fall against him. Her face pressed into his chest and Coulson wrapped his arms around her, holding up her weight with one arm and stroking over the back of her head and down her hair with his other hand. He let her cry, even though he wanted to make her lay back down on the bed to rest, because more than his want for her to rest, he selfishly needed to hold onto her, to have that tangible evidence that they hadn’t lost her.

“You did great, kid,” He whispered before he pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “It’s over now,” he told her. He let her cry for a few more minutes, until she pulled herself under control. Coulson helped her sit back on the bed, her legs dangling over its edge. “Let me fix that up, we’ll get you a little more cleaned up and then we’ll go see him…okay?” He arched his eyebrows and gently squeezed her shoulders. Daisy sniffled again and nodded, doing her best to sort through and organize her thoughts and emotions. She was too afraid to think it was really over, after all that they had been through.

\--

Jemma had been waiting near the hangar bay, waiting for the team’s return, but when they were about a half an hour out, Lily had woken up from a nightmare and Jemma had gone back to sit with her. Rather than staying back in the bunk with her, she had wrapped Lily up in her baby blanket and walked with her to the common room. It was closer to the hanger.

For a long time, Lily clung to Jemma with her face buried into the crook of her neck, holding onto and absently fiddling with the pendant of the necklace around Jemma’s neck. Jemma had spent the time running her hand in random patterns along Lily’s back, absently pressing a kiss or two to the top or side of her head. She swayed gently from side to side, not quite trying to make sure Lily fell back asleep so much as trying to comfort both of them in the moment.

“Is Mama coming home soon?” Lily murmured into Jemma’s neck.

Jemma closed her eyes for a moment and held tighter onto Lily. She nodded against the side of Lily’s head. “She’ll be back soon, Love,” she assured though she didn’t know in what kind of shape Daisy would return in. May had only given Fitz a few details, one of which included the fact that Daisy had been trapped in the building’s collapse. Jemma had spent hours telling herself that Daisy had survived the collapse in San Juan without a scratch. Surely she could survive similar, right?

“Okay…” Lily sounded miserable. She hated waking up from a nightmare and only having one of her moms there to protect her. She wanted them both with her, to make sure the monsters couldn’t really get her. They always made her feel safe and she knew that they would never let anything happen to her, even if some scary things might happen around them, she knew they would keep her safe. Having one of them gone left her grumpy and sad.

\--

“Do you want to call Jemma and update her?” May asked.

Daisy was staring down at the perfect little bundle in her arms. It was surreal to see his face in shades of peach and pink, with little tufts of light brown hair on the top of his mostly bald little head. He was warm. He squirmed about every so often out of his own control. He let out little squeaking sounds when he yawned and stretched. He slept soundly with his ear pressed to Daisy’s chest. Every so often over the last hour, he woke up and blinked bleary little dark brown eyes up at her, as if confused. Each time, Daisy had softly told him that everything was alright and they were headed home to his Mummy and Lily. The sound of her voice had lulled him back to sleep almost immediately every single time, as if he recognized it and knew he was safe.

Daisy shook her head and sniffled quickly. Her own injuries were trying to pull her into sleep. Her leg, thankfully, hadn’t been broken, but Bobbi had still tightly wrapped it in ace bandages to keep it still and she had said with it elevated and ice packs all around it during the last hour she had been with the baby. Every inch of her ached with bruises, cuts, wounds. She had stitches in her forehead that Lincoln had given her and that was covered with gauze. Her face, neck, shoulders and arms were all scratched up. A lot of that was covered at the moment with sweat jacket and she had at least cleaned the dried blood off of herself. The top section of her short hair was pulled up into a ponytail to keep it off her face.

“I don’t want to tell her this over the phone,” Daisy answered. “She’ll never believe it until she sees it with her own eyes.”

“I’m seeing it and finding it hard to believe,” Bobbi said as she turned into the medical pod they were seated in. She had set up some blood tests to run with the computer system while they flew back and was returning with the results.

Daisy gave her a slightly watery smile. “Is everything…” she stopped and cleared her throat. “He’s okay…right? They didn’t…ah…they didn’t do anything…change anything?”

Bobbi offered a reassuring smile. “100% Carter Jonhson-Simmons,” She assured. “Perfectly healthy, still himself and just as handsome as I thought he’d be,” She said as she brought the file over. She sat on the arm of the chair Daisy was in and put the file in her own lap. “I even have documented, scientific proof,” she said before she leaned over and kissed the top of Daisy’s head. “You scared the crap out of us,” she murmured as she used her hip the gently check Daisy’s shoulder.

Daisy glanced down at the baby in her arms again, still waiting to wake up from this dream. “Thank you for finding us,” She lifted her eyes to look between May and Bobbi.

“Oh please,” Bobbi waved the comment away. “It’s what families do,” She said, as if it had simply been a given that they would move mountains – in this case literal mountains of rubble – without a second thought for Daisy, the baby, or Jemma, or any one of the team. Daisy knew it was true. She would have done the same.

“You haven’t called him by his name,” May commented after a few moments of silence stretched between them. Daisy glanced over at her and arched her eyebrow. “You called him Carter at the facility and Coulson said you called his name when you woke up…but I haven’t heard you use it since,” She observed.

Daisy’s eyes came down to look at her son. She hadn’t needed Bobbi’s tests to be sure it was him, but it was a relief to know that there weren’t any other biological surprises lurking within his bloodstream. “He’s not,” She answered after a moment.

“He’s not?” Bobbi asked.

“He’s not Carter,” Daisy said. Bobbi and May arched their eyebrows at her. “I mean...he is...genetically speaking in whatever ways I’m sure Jem will rambling about for hours once the shock wears off…” Daisy cleared her throat and gave her head a little shake to bring her thoughts back in order. “Carter...we lost Carter. We can’t bring him back,” She looked down at the baby with a small smile. “But this little guy...he’s stuck with the lot of us now,” She said.

May couldn’t help it; she smiled warmly at the way Daisy was looking down at the baby.

Bobbi chuckled. “Yeah he is,” She nodded. “What do you think Simmons will think about that?”

Daisy considered it for a moment and shrugged her shoulders gently. “I guess we’ll find out soon?” She set her head back against the headrest as her aching muscles begged for sleep that she refused to give it.

“We’re landing in fifteen minutes,” Coulson said as he stopped in the doorframe and leaned on it, crossing his arms loosely over his chest as he smiled warmly at them.

“How’s Mack?” Daisy asked.

“Sleeping,” Coulson answered. “He’ll be alright with some rest.”

“Rest sounds nice,” Daisy quipped to a chorus of soft chuckles. She looked down at the baby in his own peaceful slumber and ached just to settle in for some sleep with Jemma, Lily and the baby.

“Soon enough you’ll get to,” Bobbi gave Daisy’s shoulder a squeeze.

“Mmm, until he wakes up in a few hours and you remember how exhausting it was for feedings and diaper changes” May teased with a small smirk.

\---

Bobbi excused herself from the group and made her way to the medical bay she had last seen Hunter in after finishing running the blood samples for Carter through the computer system. When she turned into the room, which was currently a maze of beds and cots that all the kids were seated or sprawled across. For the number of kids they had pulled from the facility, it was surprisingly quiet. The thought made Bobbi frown. Though the bug tracer that Alisha had installed for Daisy weeks ago had been combing through and pulling data and security footage feeds but they were still sorting through mass amount so of data they had retrieved, there was no way to know immediately what had been done to these kids other than the fact that they had been caged and obviously not fed or cared for very well at all.

Hunter was asleep in a chair by one of the hospital beds next to a girl who looked to be around the age of four. His boots were off and he was slouched in the seat so he could rest his legs up on the bed. The little girl in the bed was curled up on her side and sleeping peacefully with her arms draped around Hunter’s shins. Hunter’s head was hanging back over the back over the low headrest, mouth open as he snored lightly. Across his lap was another of the kids, this one a boy who didn’t even look like he could have been a full year old yet. He was asleep propped on Hunter’s chest with one small blanket covering him and a larger one wrapped around him along with Hunter’s arms in such a way to keep him from rolling in his sleep and falling off the chair. The little boy and the girl in the bed had similar features to each other. Bobbi thought they might have been siblings. She smiled as she made it through the maze and reached out to gently shake his shoulder.

With a very slight start of jumpy muscles, Hunter opened his eyes with a murmured, “Hmmm?” he blinked, swallowed against his dry throat and licked his lips before his eyes focused and he spotted his wife and the overly fond smile on her face.

“Hey,” Bobbi said. She grabbed the doctor’s rolling stool and pulled it over next to the chair her husband was settled in. She brushed her fingers through the bit of short hair hanging in his eyes and pushed it back up his forehead. “Made some new friends?” she nodded to the baby and the girl in the bed in one long sideways nod of her head.

Hunter glanced down at the boy sleeping on his chest in his arms. His eyes shifted toward the bed. Bobbi spotted the faintest blush as it colored his cheeks. He shrugged up his right shoulder, careful not to jostle the boy too much and looked up at Bobbi. “She was worried someone would take her brother away again,” He tried not to frown. The whole situation was messed up – the things that these people were doing to kids, it was unimaginable he was sure. “I promised I’d stay with them both to make sure they didn’t get separated. Calmed her down enough to sleep but, she still made sure to anchor me in,” he nodded toward the bed as his evidence since she was holding onto his legs, no doubt so that if he moved, she’d wake up and know what was going on.

Bobbi couldn’t help but smile at the story. She leaned over and kissed the side of his head as her fingers slipped through the short hair along the back of his head. “Every now and then, you’re still full of surprises,” She murmured. She brought her head down to rest on its side on top of his for a moment. Coulson’s voice filtered through the intercoms to let everyone know they were landing in just a few minutes, filling up the silence that had fallen over Bobbi and Hunter.

“What do you think’s going to happen to all of them?” Hunter broke the silence. He sounded wary of whatever answer Bobbi might have for him.

“I’m not sure,” Bobbi answered honestly. “A lot of their background information will be in the data Daisy siphoned from the facility over the last few weeks,” She reasoned. “Supposing we can’t reunite them with any of their parents…I guess we would have to go about handing them over to the system to sort out…” She didn’t like the idea even as she suggested it was what would happen.

Hunter frowned. He shook his head as Bobbi picked hers up and looked down at him. “I don’t like it. They’ll probably separate them,” He nodded to the boy in his arms and the girl in the bed.

“Hopefully it won’t come to that and we’ll find their parents instead,” Bobbi said. Hunter pressed his lips together and frowned. “What?”

“Nothing…I just…” He sighed. “I promised I wouldn’t let them get separated…”

Bobbi leaned over and kissed the side of his head. “We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen, regardless of whether or not we find their parents. I promise, okay?”

\---

“Simmons,” Fitz gave Jemma’s shoulder a small shake. “Hey…Jemma,” he spoke her name louder.

Jemma and Lily had dozed off slightly in the common room, the combination of emotion and taking comfort in cuddling each other having slowly lulled them both into a sleepy daze. She startled awake as Fitz shook her shoulder with a sharp inhale of breath. Lily shifted in her arms and Jemma adjusted her grip on her daughter and looked around with wild confusion for a moment.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry, I had to wake you,” Fitz apologized. “They’ve landed.”

Jemma’s eyes widened. She tightened her grip on Lily and moved to stand. “Where are they?” she asked, already leaving the room quickly with Fitz rushing to catch up.

“Medical wing,” He said. “Do you want me to take her so you can…?” He arched his eyebrows and nodded toward Lily. Jemma considered the option but when she went to take advantage of it, Lily squirmed and let out a whimper before wrapping herself tighter around Jemma. So Jemma adjusted her grip and kept walking.

The only thing she knew was that Daisy had been hurt but that she was ‘okay,’ whatever that meant. She needed to see her wife, to reach out and touch her and know that she was safe. It was that simple. She understood Lily’s want to do so as well, for different reasons. So Jemma picked up the pace as they went, barely able to pay attention as Fitz tried to speak to her.

\---

Once they landed, the team started offloading the plane with the help of the team members at the base. Daisy was surprised not to immediately see Jemma until Alisha explained that Fitz had gone to retrieve her since she was with Lily. Daisy had nodded and then followed the rest of the trail of people into the medical wing. She was reluctant to let the baby go but handed him over so that the doctors could double check to make sure he was okay. She had stood, outside the exam room, looking through the window with her arms crossed lightly, letting her brain run through everything that had happened while she watched the doctor look over her son while May stood inside the room a sturdy guardian next to the exam table the baby was on.

Daisy had managed to get her feet back into her boots but there was a limp to her step whenever she walked and she was much slower than normal in light of her other various injuries. She had a splitting headache but she was doing her best to ignore it.

“MAMA!” Lily’s voice rang out as soon as Jemma rounded the corner and the little girl saw her. She began to squirm immediately, fighting to get free to get to the floor. Jemma had no choice but to lean over and set her down. Lily called for Daisy again as she immediately raced down the long corridor.

Daisy turned when she heard Lily call her name. She smiled and took a few limping steps toward Lily as her daughter came barreling at her. She bent her knees and leaned over, throwing her arms open in time to catch Lily as the three year old launched herself at her Mama with a flying leap. Daisy wrapped her arms tight around Lily and peppered the side of her head, neck and shoulder with kisses, murmuring out ‘I love you’s as she did. Lily wound herself around Daisy just as she had to Jemma.

“I had bad dreams,” Lily whined. “You was gone,” she pouted and buried her face in Daisy’s neck.

Daisy kissed the side of her head and ignored the pain in her leg as she crouched there with Lily. “I’m sorry, Monkey,” she rubbed Lily’s back gently. “I’m here now…and it looks like Mummy kept you safe while you were both waiting for me, hm?” She said. Lily nodded against her shoulder as Jemma took her time coming up the hallway to give them both a moment. Jemma’s eyes took in everything she could see about Daisy’s physical condition. She had noticed the limp and she certainly noticed the bandage on her forehead and the bruises and cuts along her face, neck and hands. Jemma bit her bottom lip and tried not to worry about the injuries she maybe couldn’t see because of Daisy’s pants and sweat jacket.

“Hey,” Daisy gave Lily’s back a few pats and leaned back, holding onto Lily’s sides to let the little girl know she wasn’t letting her go just yet. Lily’s hands gripped her shoulders. “I have a surprise for you,” She whispered with a smile.

“You do?” Lily asked, opening her eyes up wide. Daisy nodded and let out a little chuckle. “What is it??”

Daisy grinned. “It’s a very special surprise and I want to show it to you as soon as I can,” She said with exaggerated enthusiasm. “But it needs just a little more time to finish getting ready. Do you think you and Uncle Fitz could go and make us some hot chocolate while I make sure the surprise is ready?” She asked, widening her eyes and arching her eyebrows.

Lily seemed a bit skeptical but after a moment, she nodded. Daisy grinned. “That’s my girl!” She kissed Lily’s cheek and then stifled a grunt as she scooped her up so she could hand her over to Fitz. “Thanks, Fitz,” she said as he took Lily and brought her to rest against his hip.

Fitz nodded. “Glad to have you back,” He carefully gave her arm a pat on his way by.

With her back to the window of the room the baby was in, just a few feet away, Daisy watched Fitz talk to Lily as he carried her back toward the common room and kitchen area. Her eyes shifted to Jemma, who leaned over kissed Lily’s shoulder as Fitz walked by with her. Jemma’s gaze turned back to Daisy as she walked the last few feet to her wife. There were dark circles around Jemma’s eyes and worry lines still creasing her forehead. Her eyes were filled and looked ready to spill over any moment.

“Jem-,”

Before Daisy could finish saying her name, Jemma swung a hand up and slapped her. It wasn’t as forceful as the time Jemma had slapped her when they were fighting while she was pregnant with Carter, but it still made Daisy’s head turn to the side slightly and made her wince with pain from it jolting the other injuries around her face. Daisy opened her mouth to protest the show of force but Jemma was still moving. She grabbed the sides of Daisy’s face and pulled her down immediately after the slap and kissed her until Daisy’s head was quite literally, because of her injuries, spinning.

“ _ You scared the shit out of me _ !” Jemma admonished breathlessly as she threw her arms around Daisy’s neck and dragged her down into a fierce hug, standing on her tiptoes and crushing Daisy to her. She was crying by then, sniffling against Daisy’s ear and clinging onto her, both immensely relieved that Daisy was safe but still anxious from all the fear and adrenaline.

Daisy closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around Jemma, ignoring the aches and pains it caused her as she pulled Jemma as tightly to her as she could. “Jemma, I’m-,”

“How could you not call me? You know I was sitting here worrying!” She scolded, letting go of Daisy and shoving her shoulders, angry but still crying with relief that Daisy was standing in front of her, even if she was injured.

“Jem,” Daisy pulled Jemma with her by her upper arms, a few steps closer to the window of the medical room. “You’re right, I’m sorry, I-,”

“Why do you always have to scare me like that?” Jemma’s gripped handfuls of the collar of Daisy’s sweat jacket as she sniffled. “We couldn’t reach you and then when we could you just let them give me no details and left me in the dark – again!”

Daisy frowned. “I know, Jem. I didn’t want to do that but I had-,”

“Don’t tell me you had no choice! Unless you want Coulson or May to tell me you were unconscious until you landed so you had a choice!” Jemma frowned up at Daisy.

“You’re right, but there’s a reason-,”

“Are you alright?” Jemma squeezed her fists tighter around the material of Daisy’s sweat jacket. Her eyes searched all over Daisy’s face as she jumped topics with urgency. “You were limping, and your head,” she reached a hand free toward the bandage.

“I’m okay,” Daisy brought her hand up from Jemma’s waist and settled it over top of Jemma’s hand that was still clenching the front of her sweat jacket. “Jem, there’s a reason why I-,”

“But did they scan it, to make sure you’re not bleeding internally? What about your leg? What happened to it?” Jemma started firing off questions.

“Jem-,” Daisy could barely get Jemma’s name out between the questions.

“Should we find somewhere to sit you down? Do you have a concussion? May said you were in the collapse – I’m sorry for yelling at you, it’s just I was so worried, Daisy. You know how I’ve been worried since everything tha’st happened. I know I agreed that you should go on this mission, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t scared you wouldn’t come home and then we lost communication with you and couldn’t restore it and-,”

Daisy lifted her free hand and slipped it against the side of Jemma’s jaw and back of her head and pulled her in for a kiss to cut off the unending ramble of nerves she had fallen into. She let go of Jemma’s hand and wrapped her arm around her middle, pulling her closer by the small of her back and she threw everything she could into that kiss, not letting up until she knew both of their lungs were burning. She pressed their foreheads together gently when she broke the kiss. “I’m sorry I scared you,” Daisy said breathlessly. “There was a reason I had to do it. I know you hate that I just said that, but, you’ll understand in a minute I promise,” she glanced at the window and then leaned back from Jemma just far enough to turn Jemma slightly toward the window.

Jemma was staring at Daisy, a mixture of confusion, anger, relief and exhaustion on her face. Daisy looked at her and offered a watery-eyed smile. “Daisy you can’t just-,” Daisy nodded toward the window and turned her own head to look through the glass. Jemma turned her head to follow her gaze and her words cut off as her eyes landed on May, standing inside the room with a bundled up baby in her arms. May smiled as she angled the baby toward the window while shifting her weight to rock him just a little bit.

Jemma was struck speechless as the wind was sucked out of her in a ragged exhale. Her hands fell to rest against Daisy’s collarbones and shoulders. Her eyes were wide and her jaw hung slack. She took the last step closer to the window, unable to turn her eyes away from the baby’s face. Daisy moved in step with her. She looped her arm tighter around her middle when Jemma’s knees wobbled, to keep her from falling. Jemma’s eyes filled with tears.

“I-Is…” Jemma swallowed the lump of emotion in her throat back as tears filled her vision again. She blinked against them, wanting a clearer view through the window as her hand reached to rest against the glass. “Is t-that…”

“Yes,” Daisy whispered against her ear. “It’s him, Jem.” She kissed the side of Jemma’s head just above her ear.

Jemma exhaled a shaky half sob and her weight shifted toward Daisy. Daisy adjusted her grip around her waist. She knew it was a big shock. Daisy wasn’t over the shock herself. She had only had a small amount of time to process it in the facility before the collapse had occurred. She had been awake for a little under an hour during the last leg of the flight. There was a lot of information to tell Jemma but right now wasn’t quite the time.

“It’s…it’s really…” Jemma stammered as the tears slipped down her cheeks while she stared.

“It’s really him,” Daisy replied. “I couldn’t tell you this over the phone,” she apologized. “I had to make sure it was him and-,”

“Is…is he…did they do anything to-,”

“He’s perfectly healthy,” Daisy kissed the side of her head again and then rested her forehead against the spot. “…do you want to hold our son, Jem?” she asked in a whisper, as if she still couldn’t believe this was really happening or that she was really able to ask Jemma that question.

Jemma’s hand gripped against the sweat jacket at the question. She nodded, unable to actually speak to reply. Daisy gave her a squeeze around her middle and kissed the side of her head. She kept a firm hold around Jemma and led her around the corner and in through the room’s doorway. Jemma was practically shaking. She couldn’t stop the tears and she didn’t bother trying. Her breath hitched as she kept her eyes glued on the bundle in May’s arms. Daisy led her over to a chair and helped her settled down into it.

May waited until Jemma was settled and then stepped over. Jemma’s eyes never left the baby as May leaned over to hand him over and Jemma brought her arms up to cradle the little bundle tight to her chest. May settled a hand on Jemma’s shoulder and gave it a small squeeze. She stood back up and gave Daisy’s arm a small squeeze as she stepped around them and made her way out to give the three of them some time alone together.

Daisy gave May a quick grateful nod before her welled over eyes were back on the vision of Jemma holding their son. It was hard to pin down any one emotion that coursed through her as she watched Jemma lift one hand free to touch the baby’s cheek as he stared up at her face, as if she was testing just to make sure he was really there. “We’ve waited so long to meet you…” Jemma said when she finally spoke. The sound of her voice made the baby worm about in her arms. Jemma sniffled and ran the tip of her finger along the bit of forehead exposed under the small knit cap that had been tucked around his head, down the length of his nose to the tip of it. She sniffled again and leaned over to kiss the end of his nose.

Daisy ran her hand over Jemma’s hair and along the back of her head and leaned over to kiss the top of her head before she moved to crouch down next to the chair Jemma was in, ignoring the way her leg protested.

Jemma broke the silence between them. “This is why you were still inside?” she asked. “When it collapsed?” She tore her eyes away from the baby and looked over at Daisy next to her. Daisy gave her a small nod. Jemma reached her free hand out to the side of Daisy’s face and ran her thumb across Daisy’s cheek to wipe a tear away. She leaned over and brought their lips together, indulging in a few sound kisses. “I love you, Daisy,” she whispered without moving far away from her when she broke the kiss. “…Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” she added, but there was a tiny hint of a smile to it.

Daisy smiled and kissed her once more. “Deal,” she leaned her head against Jemma’s so they could both look over the baby again who, by this time, was slowly starting to doze off to sleep. For a long time, that was how they stayed, tucked against each other with the baby sleeping in Jemma’s arms, occasionally gently wiping at each other’s tears and murmuring quietly to each other. Daisy’s legs screamed at her for rest but she ignored them. She wasn’t going to move until she and Jemma were good and ready to.

“He’s gonna need a name,” Jemma broke the silence. Daisy lifted her head and looked over at Jemma, tilting her head just slightly as she inched her eyebrows up. “I know, technically speaking, he’s Carter…but…”

“But he’s not,” Daisy nodded in agreement. She leaned up to quickly kiss Jemma and then there was a soft knock on the window. Daisy and Jemma looked over. Both of them smiled to see Coulson standing just on the other side with a fond, proud smile on his lips. He gave them a small wave as May settled into the spot next to him. She rolled her eyes and gave a shrug to signal that she had tried to but couldn't stop him from coming to intrude on their family moment. Daisy and Jemma both chuckled slightly.

Afterward, Daisy turned to look at the baby and then at Jemma. “I had a few thoughts about that name while we were on the plane,” she confessed.

Jemma arched her eyebrows slightly. “Yeah?” she asked.

Daisy nodded. She glanced at Coulson through the window once more and then looked over at Jemma. “I was thinking we could go with Robert.” She said.

A slow smile spread over Jemma’s lips. It was one of the names they had picked out when Jemma was pregnant with Carter. It had gone on the list specifically because it was Coulson’s father’s name, similar to the way they had decided on Lily’s name after Jemma’s grandmother. They had settled on using it as a middle name for Carter, but, in light of their situation, it seemed like a good idea to bump it up for a promotion. She looked down at the slumbering baby. “It’s perfect,” she murmured as she leaned the side of her head against Daisy’s.

Daisy smiled. She wrapped her arms loosely around them both and held on. “I love you,” She said and Jemma echoed the statement back to her. “I’d better go retrieve Lily before she comes and demands her surprise…” she said.

Jemma chuckled. “She’s going to believe in Santa for the rest of her life…” She mused as she sniffled and smiled.

Daisy chuckled. “Or at least until she asks for something insane next year and doesn’t get it,” She moved to stand up, wincing again as she did.

“You’re hurt. Why don’t you stay here and I’ll go get her?” Jemma frowned and moved to stand.

Daisy shook her head and leaned over to kiss the top of Jemma’s. “I’ll just be a minute, I promise,” she smiled and then leaned over to kiss them both before she hobbled her way out of the room and down the hall toward the common room. May stepped into the room to check on Jemma and the baby and Coulson walked with Daisy, just to make sure she was okay.

\---

“I'm alright, really,” Daisy insisted as she limped her way next to Coulson. He had fallen into step with her in the hallway and wrapped a loose arm around her, worried she might lose the ability to put weight on her leg and fall.

“I know you are,” Coulson assured without pulling his arm away. “I have the medical scans to prove it,” he said. “This is more for me than for you,” he added finally.

Daisy smiled a little at the paternal protectiveness behind his statement. She had definitely come to understand that side of Coulson a lot more over the last three or four years. So she let just little more of her weight lean into him and she felt his arm squeeze around her in return. “It still feels like this is a dream,” she confessed.

“I admit it does seem extremely surreal,” Coulson replied, angling a warm smile down at her. “Then again...look at all the unbelievable things that have happened to us over the years,” He reasoned.

Daisy stopped them just outside the kitchen area where she could hear Fitz and Lily talking as they sipped on their hot chocolates. She looked up at him with an overly fond smile on her face. “I talked to Jemma,” she announced. “About picking a name for him.”

Coulson arched his eyebrows at her slightly. “You both decided that quickly?”

Daisy shrugged her shoulders up gently. “We both agreed that even though he’s a genetically identical clone....he’s not Carter, specifically.” She cleared her throat. “So we thought we’d go with the middle name we picked out last time. We’re going with Robert...after your dad,” She smiled up at him. “If that’s okay with you?” She arched her eyebrows slightly.

Coulson just stared at her for a long moment, speechless. “Of course it is…” He said when he finally did speak, a few long heartbeats later. He reached down and pulled her to his chest to wrap her up into a hug. “Thank you,” he murmured.

Daisy smiled against his collar as she wound her arms around his middle and hugged him back. She was reluctant to let go of the embrace, still reeling from everything and trying to take it all in emotionally, but she knew she had to collect Lily, so she pulled away, still smiling. “I should get back with Lily. I’m sure Jemma and her are plenty exhausted from today.”

“You need rest too,” Coulson pointed out.

Daisy just smiled. “I’ll get it soon enough,” She said before she limped into the kitchen.

“Mama!” Lily cried as soon as she spotted Daisy.

“Lily!” Daisy replied as the little girl practically leapt from the chair and into Daisy’s arms. Daisy winced as she caught Lily. Lily’s arms and legs wound around her neck and waist as Daisy’s peppered the side of her head, her neck and shoulder with kisses, as usual. She wrapped her arms under Lily’s rear and folded her hands to make sure she didn’t fall.

Daisy looked past Lily’s shoulder and over at Fitz. “Thanks for taking care of them while we were out,” She said, trusting he’d know she meant both Jemma and Lily.

“No sweat,” Fitz said after he pressed his lips together and gave a nod. “Glad to have you back,” He smiled.

“You and me both,” Daisy grinned.

“Mama, c’I have my surpriiiiise?” Lily asked, sitting back in Daisy’s arms and holding onto her shoulders so she could look at Daisy. Before Daisy could answer, Lily tipped her head back slightly and let out a loud yawn.

Daisy let out a soft chuckle. “Sure, Monkey.” She kissed Lily’s cheek and stepped over to Fitz. “Say goodnight to Uncle Fitz and I’ll take you to it,” She said. Lily let go of Daisy so she could hug Fitz around the neck and give him a sloppy kiss on the cheek as they both said goodnight.

Daisy adjusted her grip on Lily afterward and limped out toward the hall again. “Mummy’s with your surprise now,” She said. “Are you ready for it?”

“What is ittttt?” Lily asked. She looked down as she realized that her Mama wasn’t walking quite the same as normal and frowned. She had known Daisy was hurt because of the bandage on her forehead but now this was another clue. “Did it hurted you?” She pouted her lower lip out.

“No, it wasn’t the surprise that hurt me,” Daisy assured. “Your surprise is perfectly safe. And delivered just in time for Christmas…” she said, letting a smile stretch up her lips as she carried Lily.

The mention of Christmas made Lily perk up. She sat up straighter and then looked around in the hallway as they walked. “ _ Santa _ ?” Lily asked when her eyes went back to Daisy’s face.

Daisy chuckled. “Well the jolly old fat man isn’t here to deliver it, but we managed to cross paths on our way back home,” She said. There would be a time when the truth behind a lot of stories would need to be told to Lily. For now, she could simply be a kid.

“Santa brought me presents?” Lily asked, wide eyed and awestruck.

Daisy chuckled again. “Of  _ course _ Santa brought you presents. He brings presents to good little girls and boys. You’ve been a good girl this year, haven’t you?” She said as she adjusted Lily’s weight again as they reached the medical wing. She stopped them outside the door to the room Jemma and the baby were in.

“Ya huh! I have!” Lily nodded repeatedly, as if she had to convince Daisy.

Daisy grinned. “Yes you certainly have,” She assured her with a nod and another kiss on the cheek. “Now listen, Monkey, Mummy’s in the other room right now with your surprise and we’re going to go inside but we need to be quiet, okay? We don’t want to scare them, okay?” She waited for Lily to acknowledge that she understood.

Lily nodded and then brought her index finger up to her mouth and let out a, “Shhhhhh! We’ll be quiet, shhhh, Mama!” She promised.

Daisy smiled. “Okay, here we go,” She reached for the knob of the door and turned it. Shouldering the door, she turned and pushed it open to let them in. Lily craned her neck to see around her. Daisy let the door shut gently behind her and stayed nearby it to wait and see what Lily’s reaction was to her ‘surprise.’

Jemma was seated in the chair still in the middle of the room, leaning back and gently rocking the baby in her cradled arms. He was asleep at the moment but he was clear to see there in Jemma’s arms and Daisy couldn’t help the smile that worked its way up her lips and across her face at the sight.

Lily trained her eyes on her Mummy and then let out a squealing gasp. She kicked her legs and wormed around to try and get free. Daisy winced at the pain the sudden movement caused but she adjusted her grip on Lily. Jemma softly chuckled at the reaction and cringed at the loud squeal. She looked down at the baby, but he was currently still asleep. “Mummy!” Lily squealed as she pointed, unable to squirm out of Daisy’s grip. She looked at Daisy with wide eyes. “Mama! It’s a baby!” She gasped again.

Daisy chuckled and then cleared her throat. “Shhhh,” she adjusted her hold on Lily again and stepped closer. “He’s sleeping,” She kept her voice low to mimic the quiet level they should speak at. Lily’s cheeks flushed pink and she clamped both of her hands over her mouth and bashfully buried her face into Daisy’s shoulder with a murmured apology.

Daisy grinned past her over at Jemma, who seemed to have happy tears still welling in her eyes. “Do you want to meet your baby brother, Lily?” Daisy asked, bouncing Lily at her side slightly so that she would pick her head up. Lily glanced at Jemma and the baby and nodded. “Okay, let’s go say hello,” Daisy grinned. She grabbed another chair on her way over and pulled it next to the one Jemma was in. She sat down and brought Lily in her lap with her.

“Hi, Mummy,” Lily tried to whisper but it was much louder than an adult’s control over volume.

“Hello, Sweetheart,” Jemma smiled as Lily stood up in Daisy’s lap and leaned over to get a better look at the baby. Daisy kept her arms on Lily’s waist to keep her from tipping over and Lily kept an arm on one of Daisy’s shoulders. Jemma leaned over and kissed Lily’s cheek. She angled the baby closer as she leaned over further, so that Lily could see him. “Do you want to say hello?” She smiled.

Lily suddenly felt extremely bashful, she leaned like she wanted to hide in Daisy’s shoulder again but, at the same time, was pulled in the direction of the baby, wanting to look at him. Santa delivered her baby brother!! This was what she asked for!! When Mummy asked if she wanted to say hello, Lily lifted her free hand up and waved to the sleepy baby. Daisy bit her lip to stifle a chuckle.

“Lily, this is your baby brother, Robbie,” Daisy said, keeping an arm wrapped around Lily to hold her steady while she leaned closer to move them close to Jemma and the baby, Jemma smiled and glanced at Daisy when she jumped right to the nickname since she was already thinking of going with the obvious less official sounding moniker.

For a long quiet moment, Lily did nothing but stand still staring at the little wrapped up bundle in her Mummy’s arms as if completely mesmerized by the sight of his wrinkly little baby face. She started to reach out a hand with just her index finger pointed as if she wanted to poke the side of the blanket to make sure he was real even though she could see his little body beneath the blanket moving as he breathed. She stopped just short and looked between both of her moms a couple of times. Jemma arched her eyebrows and waited to see if Lily would ask whatever question was on her mind. Lily hesitated and looked between them again, bringing her hand back to point at her chest. “C’I hold him?” she asked.

Daisy couldn’t help the sappy grin that plastered over her face. It didn’t matter how exhausted she was right then or how much her body ached or the lingering want in the back of her mind to collect all three of them and find a large enough bed to collapse into and snuggle them all to sleep. Jemma’s doting smile nearly mirrored Daisy’s.

“Sure you can,” Daisy said as she and Jemma both nodded at the same time.

“So long as you sit with Mama,” Jemma smiled reassuringly at Lily. “We have to be very gentle, though, okay?”

Lily nodded her head up and down quickly with excitement. She shifted on her feet in Daisy’s lap and Daisy chuckled. She let go of Lily’s waist and hooked her from behind by her under arms. Lifting her up, she pulled Lily back down so that she was seated in her lap and pulled all the way back against her stomach and chest. “Okay, Monkey, we’re going to hold our arms like this so Mummy can give him to you,” she said as she moved her arms under Lily’s and curled both their arms into a cradling position.

Jemma stood up slightly from her seat and leaned over, first to kiss Daisy on the lips, then to kiss Lily’s cheek. She kissed Robbie’s forehead and then gently passed him over to settle him into Lily’s and Daisy’s arms. She waited while Daisy adjusted their grip and when Daisy gave her a small nod, Jemma moved to sit back down in her seat with her eyes locked on the lot of them sitting there.

Lily stared at Robbie in almost the same way Jemma and Daisy had stared at Lily for hours on end when she was first born. Her eyes were open as far as her eyelids would allow them, she kept trying not to blink as if she might miss something. The shifting from one set of arms to another made Robbie worm around in their grip and Lily let out a surprised little squeak and held on tighter even though with Daisy’s grip on him, the baby wasn’t going anywhere.

Daisy chuckled. “Mummy used to squeak like that at first when you wiggled about in her arms,” she said before she kissed the back of Lily’s head.

Lily grinned and it stretched further across her cheeks when Robbie’s eyes blinked open and stared upward at her with his mouth hanging open slightly. “He’s awake!” She cheered and then remembered she was supposed to be quiet and let out a soft, “Shhhh,” to herself.

Jemma snickered and couldn’t resist finding her phone in whichever pocket it had been stowed in so that she could take a couple of quick pictures as Daisy held onto both of them, her chin pressed against the side of Lily’s head as she looked down over Lily’s shoulder, both of them grinning and staring at the baby as Robbie stared up at both of their faces. She put her phone down and Daisy looked over at her.

“She’s so excited, she’s shaking,” Daisy whispered with a chuckle when Jemma leaned closer to them and gently set her hand down along the top of the knit cap on Robbie’s head to huddle close with the rest of her family. Jemma felt the trembles of excitement Daisy was referring to let out her own quiet snickers as Lily started babbling away at Robbie about all the things they were going to do together once he was older and could do more than stare at them.

Jemma looked all three of them over again and then reached with her free hand to press it to Daisy’s cheek where she used the pad of her thumb to gently wipe a happy tear streak away. She slipped her fingers into Daisy’s hair and let her fingertips ease over the nape of her neck and leaned up to kiss her temple. “I love you,” she murmured just above Daisy’s ear. Daisy leaned her head to the side against Jemma’s and echoed the statement back at her.

\---

“I have so many questions…” Coulson sighed as he and May watched the Johnson-Simmons family from outside the window of room in the medical wing.

“They can wait for later,” May replied. For the last fifteen minutes or so while they had been standing there watching as the small family bonded together as a whole, May and Coulson had stood there watching. Phil’s hand continually hovered close to Melinda’s but they never quite touched. She felt it as it swung lightly at his side with each inhale and exhale and with each shuffle of his feet.

He nodded as she spoke. “Yeah, it can,” he nodded and a comfortable silence fell over the two of them. “Think they’ll be alright?”

The question settled over them for a moment before Melinda found the proper words to answer. “They’ll need time to recover,” she let her hand turn and caught his as it swung lightly back into place after a long sigh. He looked down at their hands and then his eyes met hers as she offered up a warm smile for him. “But they’ll come through it eventually, like they always do,” she said.

A grateful smile turned up the corner of Phil’s lips as she gave his hand a squeeze and pulled him along by it to give Daisy and Jemma a small measure of privacy for the moment they were having with their family.

\---

Daisy wasn’t sure how long they stayed there in the room together with each other, the four of them but she knew her body wasn’t going to last much longer without sleep to start recovering from her injuries. She turned her head down into the back of Lily’s to stifle a yawn, which Lily then caught just from the sound it made. Jemma chuckled and moved to swoop in and scoop up Robbie from both of them. She kissed each of them on the cheek in succession, Daisy, Lily and then Robbie.

“Why don’t we get you three home?” Jemma arched her eyebrows.

Daisy arched her own eyebrows. “Will you be alright to drive?” She asked as Lily turned and began to burrow into Daisy’s side now that her arms were empty. She would have preferred going home rather than spending the night at the base, but, honestly after everything she would gladly fall asleep anywhere with her three favorite people.

“I’m sure we can find someone well rested enough to be a temporary chauffer for us,” Jemma smiled. “I’ll check our old room, I think Lily’s old car seat and carrier are in the storage closet still,” She kissed Robbie on the forehead and then passed him over to Daisy, who shifted Lily around so she could keep hold of both of them while they snoozed in her arms. Jemma leaned over and pulled Daisy into a few gentle lingering kisses. “Don’t go anywhere, yeah?” She said with a smile, leaving their foreheads gently touching after the kisses.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Daisy grinned and watched her go before her gaze shifted down to the sleeping bundles in her lap and arms. She wondered if that surreal feeling that this was all a dream that she was bound to wake up from any moment was every going to wear off.

\---

**December 24, 2022, 2:30am**

It was well after midnight when they managed to make it up, all four of them asleep in the back of a large black SUV driven by May with Coulson in the passenger seat, having insisted on accompanying all of them. Daisy was in the farthest back seat with Lily next to her in her car seat. Both were leaned against each other, Lily with her head resting on Daisy’s shoulder and Daisy with her head resting down on top of Lily’s head, Daisy’s arm stretched across Lily’s lap and resting along the outside of Lily’s elbow as Lily held onto Groot. Lily had insisted that they use her baby blanket to tuck over top of Robbie just to make sure he was extra warm for the ride home. Jemma and Robbie were in the middle set of seats, Robbie hooked into the car seat with his head resting on his shoulder, wrapped up in the blanket from the base with Lily’s baby blanket over his lap. Jemma was asleep leaned against the side for of the car seat, her hand resting on top of the baby blanket against Robbie’s lap.

Phil and Melinda both turned to look into the backseat after she parked the car and they unhooked their belts. Both smiled and when Melinda opened her door to climb out, Phil pulled his phone from his pocket to snap a few photos to send them both later. Phil opened one of the back doors and Melinda the other.

Daisy and Jemma each unhooked one of the kids and moved carefully so as not to wake either, carrying them inside the house. Phil and Melinda said their goodbyes and showed the Daisy and Jemma up to bed with a large bag of supplies they had stopped to get to keep them stocked until stores opened again after the holiday. Both Phil and Melinda waited in the foyer while Jemma and Daisy both quietly squabbled in the hallway about who would be the one climbing into the attic to retrieve Lily’s old bassinet. In the end Jemma won and Daisy shuffled into the master bedroom with Robbie after having gone in to lay Lily down in their bed. After a quick set up and finding some clean sheets in the hall to lay down in the bassinet and tuck around it, they settled into the room and shut the door behind them.

Once they were content that Daisy and Jemma were settling into bed with the kids, they began the search for Christmas present hiding spots so they could put out Lily’s presents under the tree. They made sure to leave a plate with a carefully scrawled thank you note from Santa (explaining that Lily had been such a good little girl that he thought she deserved her gifts a whole day early) left under a plate of half-eaten cookies and carrots and a mostly empty cup of milk. Once they were satisfied they had done a proper Xmas setup to fulfill their grandparental duties, they let themselves out and reset the alarm. Outside they unhooked the car seats and hooked them into the second car that was still in the driveway so they would have them for whatever was needed come morning.

“Shall we head off to our last stop of the night, Mrs. Claus?” Phil smirked across the hook of the SUV at Melinda.

She narrowed her eyes and shook her head as she opened the car door. “Don’t call me that,” she said. Phil laughed as he climbed in on his side and she started up the engine with the tiniest of smiles on her face to head on their way back to the base, but not without one more stop to grab some goodies for the kids and everyone else at the base. After they delivered all manner of new clothes, toys and books to Mack and the others to distribute to the kids as they woke up. Then they made the drive back to Jemma and Daisy’s house and let themselves in, making sure to scan their fingers at the alarm panel to keep from letting it make any noise. They tiptoed their way upstairs and made it into the guest room without alerting anyone that they had gone out and returned rather than just settling into bed after the girls and Robbie had. Coulson and May didn’t want to leave them on their own in light of the kind of injuries Daisy had so staying the night would give them the ability to check on her and the rest of the Johnson-Simmons crew, while allowing the family to rest in their own home. Phil and Melinda liked the additional bonus of being able to wake up and bond with the family and its new member.

\----

After getting Robbie fed and changed when he woke up, Jemma climbed in on her side of the bed under the covers, tucked against Lily’s back with Daisy on the other side of Lily. She wedged one arm under them and shifted around to get comfortable as she draped the other over them both and pulled them in close.

Daisy fought to keep her eyes open in the dark. There was part of her that was holding onto the notion that this was all a dream and she was going to wake up and none of it would be hers. Jemma watched her just over the top of Lily’s head, listening to the quiet sounds of Lily, Robbie and Daisy breathing. They were all home. They were all safe. She reached up her hand up, drawing it along the outside of the arm Daisy had wrapped around Lily and curled around her hip until she reached Daisy’s shoulder. She gave Daisy’s shoulder a gentle squeeze and then reached out to draw her fingers through Daisy’s hair. Daisy’s eyes closed momentarily, her body wanting to give in to the gentle pull for restful, peaceful sleep. A moment later they popped open again and zeroed in on Jemma’s face in the dark, fighting against her physical fatigue to remain awake and in this moment.

“Daisy,” Jemma spoke her name softly, shifting closer to help tangle their legs all together. “It’s okay to rest now,” She said.

Daisy licked her lips, preparing a counter argument full of her fears but stopped short of actually saying anything. Jemma’s fingers moved through her hair once more. “I promise you...we’ll all be here when you wake up,” she said after watching Daisy’s hesitation.

“I know it’s childish, but...after everything,” Daisy hesitated again as Jemma slipped her hand down along Daisy’s arm and to her side. “It feels so surreal...so perfect, that I just...I’m afraid that - OW!  _ Hey _ !” Daisy’s sudden gasp was muffled by the palm of Jemma’s other hand, just barely, as Jemma bit her lip and quietly snickered after having slipped her hand under the hem of Daisy’s shirt and pinched small handful of skin.

“What was that for?” Daisy asked in whispered exasperation as Jemma’s hand flattened over the spot and gently rubbed back and forth to sooth it.

Though she couldn’t kiss the spot on Daisy’s chest she had kissed the first time this particular conversation had happened, that first Christmas Eve when they were together in bed, she leaned over Lily and indulged in a lingering kiss to her lips instead. “You looked so befuddled, I wanted to make sure you knew you were really awake…” She replied as a small, sentimental smile warmed up her lips. Daisy hadn’t looked befuddled just then, obviously, but Jemma remembered that moment in bed with her very clearly while they were talking it over and deciding that this was the journey they were going to take together. So much had happened to them since that night, seven years ago now. She watched Daisy’s face as her brow furrowed at first before Jemma’s words knocked her into a sense of Deja vu.

Daisy blinked and, slowly, the corners of her mouth started to turn upward. “Thanks...I think?” She said as she tightened her grip on Jemma and Lily between them.

“Happy Christmas, Daisy,” Jemma whispered into the small space between them.

Daisy leaned across the space on the pillow and kissed her wife, smiling, relaxing a bit into the warmth of her family in the room around her. “Merry Christmas, Jem,” She whispered before the exhaustion finally pulled them toward restful sleep..


	22. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while!! I've missed you guys!! 
> 
> Go ahead and read without any pretense this time, eh? ;o) 
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you as always for reading, enjoying, kudoing, commenting and just for being awesome!  
> <3

**December 24th 2022 – Morning**

When she cracked her eyes open the next morning to see Jemma’s silhouette against the light streaming through the window, her arms cradling Robbie as she gazed down at him, murmuring soft reassurances,  Daisy was positive she was still dreaming. She stared at the vision of her wife and son without moving in her spot. The memories of the last forty-eight hours flooded back as Daisy became more aware of her stiff muscles and her aches and pains when Lily wormed against her side in her sleep. Still, Daisy’s eyes remained firmly aimed at Jemma, whose sole focus was on Robbie. Daisy had had this dream before in the past, many times. This time it wasn’t a dream. It was real. If she had wanted to interrupt the moment, she would have been able to climb from bed to reach out and touch them both. For now, Daisy was content to study the vision before her of Jemma swaying slightly back and forth with their son in her arms, whispering sweet little murmurs to him as he stared up at her with new eyes while their daughter lay snoozing snuggled up in Daisy’s arms in bed.

Robbie wiggled about in Jemma’s arms, not entirely in control of his limbs. When his little fisted hand swung upward, Jemma reached her own hand free and gently cradled it around Robbie’s. Her thumb swiped across the ribs of his little fingers before she lifted the little balled up fist to her mouth and gently kissed it, then went back to smiling down at the baby. This was Jemma’s favorite kind of staring contest. Daisy had done a lot of staring when Lily had been born. Even now she had her moments where she just sat and watched Lily as she played, or slept or while she was putting puzzles together, just because she could. But she had always enjoyed watching Jemma with Lily even more than her own little staring contests. She couldn’t help the fond, content smile that drew over her own lips as she silently watched the two of them now with the sounds of Robbie’s soft little response coos tickling her ears and warming her chest.

“Mama thinks she’s a super spy,” Jemma’s whispers morphed into murmurs just loud enough for Daisy to hear. She spoke in a warm tone, the soft, cheerful, motherly one she had adopted once Lily was born that she sometimes slipped into when talking to Elvis too. “But she forgets that I know what her even breathing sounds like when she’s actually sleeping instead of faking it,” she grinned down at the baby as his eyes followed the movement of her face.

Daisy’s smile stretched all the way across her face. She inhaled a slightly deeper breath through her nose than she had been but didn’t move. <i>Mama <b>was</b> a super spy,</i> she thought to herself. “Hey,” she spoke barely above a whisper, keeping as still as she could so she didn’t wake Lily.

“Hey, yourself,” Jemma smiled over her shoulder momentarily. She turned with Robbie and looked back down at him, widening her eyes and grinning. “What do you think, should we go lay down with mama and Lily?” she asked. Robbie wormed about in her arms in response. “I think that was a yes,” She grinned and stepped over to the bed.

Daisy was still smiling as her eyes followed them the few paces to Jemma’s side of the bed. She finally moved so she could reach for the end of the bed covers, which she pulled back and held so Jemma could climb into bed with them. Lily wormed about a bit and Daisy used the opportunity to shift them back slightly to give Jemma more room. Jemma settled on her side after she gently laid Robbie down on the bed between her and Daisy and Lilly. Before she could stop them, Daisy felt the burn in the bridge of her nose as her eyes welled with tears.

Jemma didn’t question her. She knew Daisy was alright and this was just an influx of emotion and it certainly wasn’t a bad one. She lifted the hand that had been gently running up and down Robbie’s torso over his blanket and reached out to touch Daisy’s cheek. “We’re all here,” she whispered. “Everything’s as it should be, now.” Jemma’s own eyes welled as she smiled at her wife.

Daisy turned her head and kissed the heel of Jemma’s hand and moved her arm around all three of them. “I love you,” she replied.

Jemma leaned over the kids and kissed Daisy. “I love you more,” She murmured against Daisy’s lips as she stole an extra few kisses.

“Nu-uh,” Daisy mimicked Jemma’s usual response when she would say such things just when Jemma was on the cusp of falling into slumber. Before Jemma could reply, Robbie let out a burbled murmur and they both looked down at him.

Jemma feigned a soft gasp. “Oh, you want a kiss too, is that it?” she asked even though he obviously couldn’t reply either way. Jemma leaned down to kiss is pudgy baby cheek and Daisy leaned slightly over Lily and kissed the other side of his head. The combination of both sensations made Robbie worm around in his spot, wrapped up in his baby blanket, tucked between the members of his family.

Jemma rested her elbow on the bed and leaned her head into her hand to keep proper watch over the three of them. “How are you feeling?” She quietly asked Daisy as she let her free hand gently stroke along the length of the arm Daisy had around all of them.

“Perfect would be a massive understatement,” Daisy answered. She had aches and pains of course; a building had fallen on her after she had taken a flying leap from a blown hole in the side of a building from multiple stories up. No physical aches and pains or injuries could take away the euphoria of waking up to her family complete, safe, sound and content.

Jemma pressed on, though, smiling fondly as she gave her eyes a slight roll. “You know what I mean,” she tucked some stray strands of Daisy’s hair behind her ear and traced the curve of her face.

“Achy,” Daisy answered honestly. “But it’ll pass,” she added, giving Jemma’s hip a small, reassuring squeeze. A few moments of silence passed between them as they gazed at their children before Daisy whispered, “I can’t believe he’s here…” as if saying the words might make the fates take Robbie back somehow. “I can’t believe we’re all here…”

Jemma leaned across the kids carefully again and kissed Daisy’s forehead. “Better believe it because I’m not getting stuck with midnight feedings and diaper changes on my own,” She teased.

Daisy bit into her lip to stifle a snicker at the jest as they settled in, snuggled up as a full family for a short moment of respite and bliss for a little more slumber.

\--

“Don’t wake them, yet,” Phil whispered as he approached.

Melinda smirked to herself but didn’t move. “Your conspicuously loud footfalls will wake them before I do,” she said.

“I could’ve snuck up on you,” Phil murmured just before his hands swept around the curve of her hips and came to rest loosely around her waist. At the same time he dropped his head and pressed a light kiss to the back crook of her neck before he felt May’s muscles unwind as she relaxed back into his embrace.

“Wake up, Phil,” May said, a light lilt lacing through her whispered tone. “You’re still dreaming.”

Phil stifled a chuckle into her shoulder and then lifted is head to peek through the cracked doorway at the slumbering family beyond the threshold. “We’ve got a lot to sort through,” He murmured.

“It can wait half a day,” Melinda was not one to shirk duty or to procrastinate but today…this morning, at least, was for this family. There was concern and necessary recuperation. They would need to keep an eye on Daisy just to be sure she had no lasting concussion issues or any other internal injuries. Melinda had no doubt that Jemma had spent the night frequently shaking Daisy awake to question her and scooping Robbie up whenever he cried. Now all four of them were huddled together, each touching or holding onto the other in some way – even Elvis was splayed across the tops of their pillows to cuddle with them – and Melinda was loathe to disrupt the serene nature of the scene before them for any reason.

“It can,” Phil greed. They watched in silence for some long moments before he spoke again. “We should talk about the kids,” he said.

Melinda tensed at the statement. “What?” She asked, still quiet and composed despite the locking of her muscles.

“We know how Ward worked,” Phil commented. He shrugged. “It’s likely we won’t find their families or, if we do, it’s likely we’ll find bodies rather than living relatives.”

Melinda frowned. She broke Phil’s grasp and turned to make her way toward the stairs, not wanting such thoughts in her head while she watched the docile scene of the reunited Johnson-Simmons family cuddling in bed disrupted by the mental intrusion of potential orphans and broken families that Ward had left in his wake.

Phil followed Melinda downstairs and into the kitchen. They worked, for a time, wordlessly to start making breakfast. “We should consider the possibility that-,”

“It can wait half a day,” Melinda looked over at Phil, her forehead puckered into a match of furrows for the frown on her face.

Phil acquiesced with a single nod of his head. “You’re right,” He said. “It can wait half a day.”

Melinda exhaled the breath she had been holding with slow relief. “Thank you,” she said and went back to dicing up onions to cook with the potatoes.

\--

The second time Daisy woke up that day, it was much more difficult to crack her eyes open. Her body had finally hit the point of inflammation pain and her stiff joints and muscles hurt with a deep throbbing ache. Jemma sat on the edge of the bed; her hip and side flush against Daisy’s back with a hand resting in front of Daisy on the mattress. Her other hand ran in gentle strokes along Daisy’s arm and back, occasionally moving to comb through or tuck her hair behind her ear. Daisy let out a groan when she shifted to lean against Jemma so she could turn her head on the pillow. She made a mental note that she really needed to get out of the business of having buildings fall on her.

“Hey,” Jemma spoke in a quiet tone, gentle and soft around the edges but warm and inviting.

Daisy wanted to roll over and curl up against her wife’s side in that still-sleepy moment. As she moved further into the conscious world, Daisy realized that the kids weren’t in bed anymore. Her eyes opened a little wider and she started to try and sit up. With the way Jemma was leaning over her all she managed was the hoist her weight up on her elbows, which caused a hitch in her breath and a grimace of muscles around her face that Jemma most definitely took note of as she watched Daisy carefully.

“Where…”

“They’re downstairs with May and Coulson,” Jemma answered. “They made breakfast. How are you feeling?” She watched Daisy’s face very carefully, in full assessment mode, Daisy knew.

“Achy,” Daisy confessed, knowing that Jemma wasn’t going to let her get away with saying she was perfectly fine.

Concern had already been on Jemma’s face, it never left as she gave her head a slight nod and let her fingertips trace the angles of Daisy’s face. “Where?”

The right corner of Daisy’s lips twitched upward into a crooked grin. “Everywhere,” she attempted to sit up further and Jemma’s hand came up from the mattress and set to rest gently on the outside of her arm, unsure if she wanted to insist that Daisy lay back down or help her properly sit up. “Why, you wanna play doctor?” Daisy asked with a quick bounce of her eyebrows.

Jemma’s cheeks flushed a slight pink shade. “Oh, stop,” She said with a roll of her eyes though there was a small, relieved smile playing on her lips. Daisy wouldn’t have been joking if she was really in a bad way beyond tolerance, Jemma knew that. She leaned over and kissed the corner of Daisy’s lips. “You don’t have to pretend you’re alright if you aren’t,” she said in the same moment she had leaned in and touched her forehead to Daisy’s.

“I’m alright,” Daisy promised. “Just sore,” She leaned into Jemma’s embrace as each wrapped their arms around the other. Daisy held tight to Jemma and buried her nose into the crook of Jemma’s neck towards the back of it. She inhaled a deep breath through her nose, taking in the familiar scent and she reminded herself about everything that had happened over the last forty-eight hours.

“It’s really over now,” Jemma murmured after pressing a kiss to the side of Daisy’s head as she held on. She tried to fight the nagging thought in the back of her mind that crept in to remind her,  _ until the next big disaster shows up on our doorstep _ . Daisy knew Jemma was trying to reassure herself just as much as she was trying to soothe her.

“Yeah, it is,” Daisy kissed Jemma’s shoulder. “Don’t pinch me for saying so but…it feels surreal to have him back…” She knew that, technically, Robbie was not Carter. All the same, by chance they had been given something that had previously been unceremoniously ripped away from them in the past and it felt almost like it had to be a dream, and one that Daisy certainly didn’t want to wake from if that was the case.

“He’s real,” Jemma murmured. She tightened her grip on Daisy. “We’re here. We’re safe. It’s done.” She let the words out and then exhaled a long breath. “I love you,” she murmured.

Daisy smiled into the crook of her neck. She kissed the closest patch of skin against Jemma’s neck and then sat back to look at her wife. A smile played on her lips as she ignored the pull of tightness in various muscle groupings every slight movement caused. “I love you more, nerd,” She teased.

“Nu-uh,” Jemma tried to act scandalized but she was too busy smiling. Daisy kissed her quickly, as if doing so might stop anything from breaking either of their current spirits. “C’mon, let’s get some breakfast. Lily has informed me that Santa came to visit a day early,” she reluctantly moved from Daisy’s embrace and held her hands out to help her wife out of bed. They left the bedroom at a slow pace, arms around each other’s waists as Jemma matched her pace to Daisy’s slower shuffle.

When they reach the kitchen and dining room, they stopped in the doorway to watch the scene before them. May was standing by the dining room table with Robbie in her arms, practically cooing down at him as he stared at her with wide eyes, taking the world, or at least the face he would come to know as his grandmother’s, in. Lily was seated in her normal chair at the dining room table picking at syrup covered pieces of pancake with her hands even though May had asked her repeatedly to use her fork. Phil was finishing up at the stove and counter, dumping the last of some cut up hash brown potatoes and onions onto plates for the adults. Lily was the first

to spot her moms.

“MAMA!” She let out a screech of Daisy’s name and dashed from the chair, across the threshold and through the kitchen in a direct beeline for Daisy. Jemma was prepared to step in to block the Lily freight train of hugs and kisses, but Daisy leaned down and hooked the little girl under her arms. With a grunt she couldn’t suppress, she lifted Lily up into her arms and hugged her tightly. 

“Hello my little monkey!” Daisy grinned. She crossed her arms under Lily’s rear while Lily wrapped her legs around Daisy’s waist. Lily’s sticky pancake syrup hands wound around Daisy’s shoulders and one of them wound into the tuft of hair at the back of her neck but Daisy didn’t bother stopping her to clean her hands. Daisy was a pro as surviving her kid having food-sticky hands. She peppered Lily’s shoulder, neck and cheek with kisses. “Did Nǎinai and Papa make you  _ pancakes _ ?” She asked in an exaggeratedly excited tone.

“Ya-huh!” Lily nodded a few times quickly. Jemma didn’t have it in her to correct Lily today. They’d been through enough. A verbal grammatical flub was excusable. “But they’s not peanut monkey chips!” She pouted her bottom lip out and dropped her face into a devious little set of puppy dog eyes.

Daisy couldn’t help but chuckle even though it hurt to do so. “Of course they’re not!” Daisy dropped her voice to a conspiratorial tone as she leaned closer and mock whispered. “Don’t you know only Mamas and Mummies can make peanut monkey chips for you??” She asked.

Lily’s eyes widened and her eyebrows arched up her forehead. She turned and looked at Phil, since he was closest to them.

“Don’t look at me, kiddo. Mama’s telling the truth - I’m no professional peanut monkey chip maker,” Phil had a plate in each hand as he headed for the dining room, stooping to kiss the back of Lily’s head on the way by.

“See?” Daisy went on, playing it up as she walked, still with a slightly pronounced limp, toward the dining room with Lily in her arms. Jemma stepped toward the counter to start working on a cup of coffee for Daisy and a cup of tea for herself; relaxing a bit more the longer she was in the same room as Daisy and the kids. The thought gave her pause at her mug as she let it roll around her brain again,  _ the kids _ . It wasn’t just, Daisy, Jemma and Lily (and Elvis!) anymore. She smiled to herself as she felt the familiar burn in the bridge of her nose that momentarily stung her eyes.

Daisy carefully unwound Lily from her waist and set her back down in her chair. She pushed the chair in and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from cringing at the pain and then she leaned over to kiss the top of Lily’s head. Phil put two plates on the table and then went back to the kitchen to get the remaining two as Daisy leaned into May’s side and looked over her shoulder down at Robbie’s pudgy little baby face. They were really making up for lost time, she supposed, for those two months Robbie spent in suspended animation and for the years that had been so wrongfully stolen from them all. Daisy shuddered at the leftover thoughts about what Ward and

his goons had done with her son’s DNA. How many other clones of their son had she inadvertently destroyed while she was on those missions, destroying those facilities to make sure she destroyed every Ward clone there was in existence?

“Now’s not the time to overthink it,” May said when she looked over at Daisy and spotted the faraway look on Daisy’s face. Daisy blinked and looked over at May. “Now’s the time to be with them,” May spoke quietly. Daisy nodded. She leaned over and kissed the top of Robbie’s head and just as she did so received a deft, quick kiss to the temple from May. “Come sit down and eat,” May urged without acknowledging the intimate gesture that just occurred. Daisy merely smiled and turned to settle in at the dining room table next to each other, with May still holding the baby. Phil and Jemma joined them with the last two plates of food and the two mugs respectively.

\--

**December 24th 2022 – Mid-afternoon**

“Mama!” Lily attempted to whisper Daisy’s name but it was much louder than a whisper.

“Hmm?” Daisy murmured from her spot lying on the couch in the living room with a blanket draped around her. It was late afternoon. Presents had been opened after breakfast and the entire family had settled in for some Christmas movies in the living room when Daisy had nodded off after Jemma had given her some particularly strong pain medication tablets to take for her soreness. After the first movie, Phil and Melinda left so they could head to the base and get caught up on the potentially orphaned children situation.

Daisy cracked one of her eyes open and came face to face with Lily, who crouched, with Groot tucked in her arm, mere inches away in front of the couch where Daisy lay. “Hey sweet pea,” she murmured, though it was slightly mushed together and sounded more like ‘sweepie,’ as she said it. She reached out and tucked some of Lily’s wild stray hair behind her ear just as Lily let out a big yawn. Daisy chuckled and tried to ignore the dull ache it caused. “You wanna take a nap with Mama?” she scooted back on the couch slightly and moved to hold the blanket that Jemma had no doubt draped over her in her sleep up so Lily could climb in.

With only a moment’s hesitation for thought, Lily nodded and proceeded to climb onto the couch and wormed around until she was curled up against Daisy with her head resting along the pillow and Daisy’s arm. Daisy shifted around and made sure Lily was tucked in snuggly. “All tuckered out, hm?” She asked the sleepy little girl as she ran her hand in soothing circles along Lily’s back. Lily nodded against her arm. Daisy leaned over and pressed her lips to Lily’s forehead. “After our nap, we’ll see what Mummy’s up to and play with Robbie, hm?” She asked. Lily yawned and nodded her head again. “Sweet dreams, Lily,” Daisy kissed her forehead again.

“Love you, Mama,” Lily murmured.

“You too, Monkey,” Daisy smiled. Both of them were asleep again within moments. In between Robbie’s few feedings, changings and short naps, Jemma spotted the two of them on one of her 

Daisy checkups, cuddled together on the couch and snapped a few pictures of Lily’s little fist twisted around some tufts of Daiy’s hair and Daisy with her lips frozen in sleep, pressed to Lily’s forehead as they embraced. Jemma couldn’t pass up something as adorable as that without capturing it as a forever freeze frame.

\--

“You’ve been at work on this for a while, I take it?” May asked as she turned into the lab Bobbi was working in.

Bobbi jumped slightly. She looked over her shoulder from the computer in front of her and then lifted a hand to rub her eyes. “There are so many of them,” She murmured as if that simply explained it all. She exhaled a sigh and then turned in her chair to face May a little more fully. May grabbed a wayward stool on wheels and rolled it over to sit across from a very tired-looking Bobbi. “How are they?” She asked, referring to the Johnson-Simmons brood without having to actually say so.

“Daisy’s taking it easy and recovering with relative ease and less stubbornness than usual,” May answered, which drew a snort of laughter from Bobbi.

“And Simmons?” Bobbi asked.

“I think she’s still a little shell shocked,” May replied. “But not necessarily in a bad way. She’s worried about Daisy, of course. They’re good. Kids are happy and safe, they’re both together. That part of the job’s finished,” She said. A glance at the computer screen told her that Bobbi had completed DNA samples, possibly fingerprints and maybe even facial recognition photos because the computers on the desk in front of her were running through all sorts of commands while she waited. “How are things coming along here?” May arched her eyebrows.

Bobbi sighed. She was relieved to hear that Daisy, Jemma and the kids were doing well and recuperating. At the same time, the task in front of her for identifying the kids from the facility and finding their potential relatives was daunting and it showed in the slight circles under Bobbi’s eyes and the draw creases of her face.

“There are so many of them,” She looked over at May. “If there was evidence of their lives before they entered the facility…a lot of it’s been wiped clean. Most of them are too afraid to talk to us still.”

May considered this particular roadblock for a moment. “If she’s feeling up to it later, maybe we can get Daisy in on the search for contacts,” She said.

Bobbi nodded. “If she’s feeling up to it, whenever she does,” She said.

May angled her head slightly she looked over Bobbi’s tired face. “What else is bothering you?”

Bobbi blinked and looked over at her old friend. Self-consciously she loosely crossed her arms over her chest. “Me? Nothing’s bothering me…aside from my dead end searches,” she insisted. 

May narrowed her eyes at Bobbi. Bobbi sighed. “I’ve…been doing a lot of thinking, I guess.”

May cocked her right eyebrow up in question but said nothing, just waited for Bobbi to continue.

“About…” Bobbi hesitated and then sighed again. “About Lance, and the future…and all these kids and how uncertain theirs are…”

\--

**December 25th** **2022 - late afternoon**

“I will never know where their energy comes from…” Bobbi dropped onto the mats in the exercise room onto her back, breathing heavily, next to Lance. She propped herself up on her elbows and looked to the center of the mats in the room where Daisy, Jemma and Phil were all smiles and laughs as they ignored how winded they all were in favor of playing with the kids. Out of the twenty children they had found at the facility, they had been able to find relatives for nine of them over the last twenty-four hours. Of those nine, six had already been retrieved and the others were waiting on their parents, siblings or other relatives to arrive via official transport. They were still searching for relatives of the remaining eleven children, including the two kids that had been practically glued to Lance since they had managed to get them all on the bus to safety. Some of the older kids had been able to give them full names for their parents or other relatives to search for, some had phone numbers memorized, some were either too young to remember or too weak to do much other than lie in their beds.

At lunchtime that day, Jemma and Daisy had arrived at the base with Lily, Robbie and four or five large sacks of gifts and supplies – clothes, necessities, toys, movies, games and snacks. Agents were spread throughout the base with the kids, all in different states of health, and all with different powers, most with only so much control over their abilities, if any at all. When asked how they had managed all the goods on a holiday when almost everything was closed, Jemma had replied with, “Cyberstalking and face-to-face guilt trips with store managers,” before Daisy had insisted that ‘stalking’ was a harsh term and that she preferred ‘sleuthing,’ instead.

Currently, there were five of the children, including the counterpart sibling to the little boy currently snoozing against Lance’s shoulder and drooling all over his shirt, that were playing a lively game which seemed to have no rules other than the objective of trying to pile-on Daisy and Phil at all costs. Jemma was the only adult on the kids’ ‘team,’ and Lily had joined in almost immediately. Robbie was snoozing away in a playpen nearby in the corner, having recently had his fill of a bottle and a burping. Both he and the boy slumbering on Lance’s shoulder were contently sleeping during the thunderous noise bouncing around the room.

Lance smirked over at Bobbi as he absently patted along the baby’s back and unconsciously swayed just slightly every so often. It was enough for Bobbi to pick up on it though she didn’t dare say anything about it. “Perhaps you’re getting a bit over the hill, Bob,” He grinned.

Bobbi dropped her jaw in mock shock. “Don’t call me old!” If it weren’t for the baby, she’d have slugged him playfully in the shoulder for that. Lance chuckled and looked over at the group again. 

Bobbi glanced at the group and noticed Lark, the little girl whose sibling Lance was holding, stopped her participation to make sure Lance still had her brother. He had promised that they wouldn’t be separated again and as a result he was pretty much the only person she let hold her brother without pitching a fit about it. For the past couple of days Lark and her brother Robin had been bunking with Lance and Bobbi. Interacting with them and watching Lance with them was putting some wild ideas in her brain, wild ideas that were simultaneously wonderful and terrifying to mull over. 

“You’re staring like a weirdoooo,” Lance sung out without looking over at his wife.

Bobbi moved to sit up properly. She watched Lark as the girl decided Robin was safe and threw herself back into the game at Lily’s insistence by taking a flying leap onto Phil’s back when he was on the mat on all fours. “How’s she doing today?” She asked.

“Well, she hasn’t come over her to demand you move away from her brother yet, so,” He looked over at Bobbi again. “I s’pose that’s some progress on trust?”

“It’s only been a day,” Bobbi replied. “I can wait her out.”

“We’re not going to find their parents,” Lance said quietly. Bobbi’s brow furrowed. “Not alive,” Lance went on.

“You can’t know that…” Bobbi replied with a frown. “That ground team-,”

“She told me this morning about the day they were taken,” Lance looked over at Bobbi again. He frowned. “We’re not going to find their parents alive.”

Bobbi didn’t know what to say to this new information. She reached up and pressed her hand to his back. “If there are any matches in the system for relatives, we’ll find them,” she said. “We’re not going to let them get split up. We’ll keep the promise,” she assured.

Lance looked to the heaping pile of kids (and Jemma) piled on top of Daisy and Coulson as they tried to break free, and let his eyes follow Lark as she played. “What if we don’t find any relatives to take them in? We get a few weeks and then we’re just supposed to dump them in the system if we come up with no leads?”

“Lance-,”

“Who’s going to help them with learning and controlling their abilities?” Lance shook his head. “We can’t do that to them.”

Bobbi was shocked into silence at Lance’s insistence on this matter. She wasn’t sure she should be so surprised. She had watched him starting to get attached that first night she found them while they were on the bus flying back to the base late last night. “What are you suggesting as an alternative?” She asked so that she could be sure she knew what Lance might have bouncing around his head.

Lance looked over at Bobbi and hesitated. “I think…” he glanced at Lark again before turning his attention back to Bobbi. “I think they should stay with us.”

There it was. Bobbi felt her heart flutter right into her throat. “Lance,” She said.

Lance frowned. “You hate the idea of it,” He shook his head and looked back at the game in progress.

“Hey,” Bobbi frowned and pressed her hand tighter against the back of Lance’s shoulder. With reluctance, he looked over at her. “If you’re going to jump to conclusions, at least jump to the right ones,” She said. “I don’t hate the idea.”

Lance blinked at her. “You…you don’t?”

“It scares the shit out of me,” she confessed as she let her eyes drop to look at the sleeping baby’s face for a moment. “But I don’t  _ hate  _ the idea,” She confirmed.

Before either of them could say anything further, Lark was dashing across the mats. At first, Bobbi thought it was because she was coming to protectively scare her away from Robin but she quickly realized the kid was out of control in her escape from Daisy and Phil’s pursuit and was on a collision course with Lance and Robin. She threw her arms out as she dove forward to catch the girl and dropped to her side away from Lance and Robin on the mats beneath them. Without waiting for Lark to try and scramble free, she started to lightly tickle the girl’s sides. Wild shrieks of laughter erupted from Lark.

She squirmed and giggled and just as Bobbi was about to let go of her to let her run back to the game, the giggles morphed into a set of uncontrollable shrieks. The force of the shrieks jolted Bobbi’s shoulder, blasted her ear drum and shot upward past her shoulder before the forceful sound waves hit the ceiling. Bobbi immediately felt a few things; pain in her ear followed by intense ringing in the ear before she felt liquid dripping from her ear canal, Lark as she moved to clamp her hands tightly over her mouth beneath her, bits of dust as parts of the damaged ceiling started to fall back toward them and a whoosh of air as Daisy threw her hand out to direct the debris away from Bobbi, Hunter, Lark and Robin just as Bobbi was curling herself around the little girl to keep anything from falling on her.

Everything sounded muffled as the game came to a screeching halt. The kids hung back at Phil’s direction as Jemma rushed, breathless, around Daisy and knelt next to Bobbi and Lark. Hunter was asking her something but Bobbi couldn’t make it out in the chaos and with the ringing. The only thing she actually heard, from her good ear, which was right next to Lark at the moment, was the telltale sobs coming from beneath Lark’s clamped hands. She looked down at the little girl, who now had tears streaming down her face and fear in her eyes. Bobbi ignored the throbbing pain in her ear and the dizziness her loss of equilibrium was causing for the moment. “It’s okay,” She said over and over again to the little girl, reaching to wipe at her tears, unaware that she was partially yelling it because of her current partial deafness.

“Bobbi, we should get you to medical,” Jemma said. She shook Bobbi’s arm to get her attention and repeated it when Bobbi looked her way. Bobbi nodded and let Jemma and Daisy help her up. 

She wobbled for a moment and closed her eyes to give her head a good shake with their support.

“I’m okay,” Bobbi said loudly, still without realizing it. “I’m okay,” she looked at Lark again and held her hands out. “It’s okay, honey, I’m alright!” She said to the terrified girl. Hunter had moved to his knees and was trying to coax Lark’s hands away from her mouth while trying to reassure her that it was okay.

“I’ll bring her down once you’ve been checked over,” Hunter called to Bobbi. Jemma and Daisy quickly started to usher Bobbi from the room.

Phil turned to the other kids in the room, all shocked and staring. “…WHO WANTS COOKIES AND HOT CHOCOLATE?!?” He cheered to distract them. To a chorus of cheers, Phil headed for the playpen and grabbed Robbie before he led the kids down a different hall to head for the kitchen with Lily’s help. Lance managed to console Lark after a few minutes and he scooped her up in his other arm, promising her that everything was okay and that they could go check on Bobbi in a few minutes. He walked, swaying with both kids in his arms and made his way at a slow pace toward the medical area to give Jemma time to check Bobbi over.

\--

“It perforated her eardrum,” Jemma said with that wonderstruck ‘that’s science!’ tone that she sometimes fell into when she was fascinated by something.

Daisy’s eyes widened. “Can you fix it??” She asked with alarm. Bobbi could only see Daisy’s face since Jemma was holding her head still while she used a lighted scope to look into her ear. She could only hear some of the words Daisy was saying and her lip reading wasn’t all that great while she was dizzy.

“Oh! Yes, of course! It’s a simple fix really. We can put her under general anesthesia and use the temporalis fascia to graft off and patch it over then we can pack it with gelfoam soaked in-,”

“Stop,” Daisy held her hand up and grimaced at the sound of everything Jemma was saying that she understood. “Can you do it now?”

Jemma shook her head. “No, I’m afraid we can’t do it while the ear is discharging,” she said.

Daisy grimaced again. “…do you mean bleeding?”

“It’s a combination of blood from the injury and otorrhea at the moment,” Jemma began to ramble. “That’s the fluid that’s inside your eardrum, since it’s been perforated; it’s free to leak out.” She poked the scope end back into Bobbi’s ear canal while pulling upward on the top of her earlobe. Bobbi flinched and Daisy grimaced in sympathy.

“So…what do we do?” Daisy asked.

“Right now I want to cauterize the blood vessel and then we’ll clean out the area and take another look. After that, we’ll check it daily. It should heal on its own. If it gets infected, we can give her antibiotic drops and if the hole doesn’t heal then we can patch it with minor surgery.” Jemma rambled.

Daisy nodded. Bobbi decided she didn’t want to know what they were saying from the way Daisy was cringing. She thought it odd that, at the moment, since Jemma was on the injured side of her, she sounded an awful lot like the adults in Charlie Brown specials when she talked with a dull ‘wah wah, wah wah wah, wah wah.’

“Can you go check on Lark?” Bobbi asked loudly without the ability to control her volume properly.

Daisy grimaced again. “Inside voice!” She teased though she gave Bobbi’s knee a quick squeeze as she nodded and turned to head out of the medical wing. She ran into Hunter in the hallway with both Lark and Robin and watched as he walked with them, a gentle sway to his step and a calm and soothing lilt to this tone. It was a very different version of Hunter that she had only ever seen in small doses while he was babysitting or playing with Lily. She smiled as she approached them, trying to be reassuring.

“Everything’s okay,” Daisy assured them. “Her eardrum’s perforated but it’ll heal all on its own,” She said, knowing Lark was too young to know what ‘perforated’ actually meant, although she was sure Lily already knew the word. Hunter nodded. Daisy held her hands out to Lark to offer to take her. “Want to go see her? You can see for yourself that she’s alright?” At first, Lark shook her head. Daisy pushed her bottom lip out. “Are you sure? Bobbi’s been asking for you. She wants to know you’re okay too,” She said.

Lark opened her mouth to speak but then threw a hand up quickly to cover it, afraid she would hurt either her brother or one of the others. Daisy frowned. She managed to get Lark to let Hunter pass her over to Daisy. Daisy brought the young girl with pin straight sandy blonde hair to rest on her hip and swayed with her as she walked, rubbing Lark’s back gently. “It’s okay, sweetheart. It was just an accident. Everything’s alright,” she promised, stroking the girl’s hair and back gently as she walked back into the medical wing with Hunter and Robin in tow.

Bobbi brightened when they appeared, bringing a smile to her face. She lifted her hand to wave at them. She didn’t want the little girl to think she was mad (because she wasn’t) or upset (she wasn’t) with her. They hadn’t known her abilities when she had arrived and no one could have guessed what would have happened while playing around. Tears sprung to Lark’s eyes when she saw Bobbi. She buried her face into Daisy’s shoulder as Daisy walked over to stand next to Bobbi on the opposite side Jemma was standing.

Bobbi reached out to run her hand along Lark’s back. “Why are you crying, sweetheart?” She asked a little loudly, though she was actively trying to regulate her vocal volume now.

It took some coaxing but, once Jemma was done with the cauterizing and was down to cleaning Bobbi’s ear carefully, Bobbi and Daisy had successfully managed to get Lark to settle into Bobbi’s lap. When she wasn’t forced to keep her head still because of Jemma’s work, Bobbi avoiding as much flinching as possible while she smiled down at the little girl and stroked her hair and back, managed to drop the volume of her voice to quietly reassure her. Hunter settled into a chair next to the exam table with Robin and watched with equal parts of concern for both of them.

\--

**January 1st 2023 – Early morning**

Trying to explain everything that had happened to Jemma’s parents was surprisingly less difficult than Daisy and Jemma had originally thought it might be. Jemma’s parents had been confused at first on their video chat but once Robbie had been carried into the mix after a changing, they had been too busy fussing and cooing over him through the computer screen to delve  _ too _ deeply into the murkier side of things. They’d had many years of training from Jemma’s attempts at keeping them as far out of reach of the crazier sides of her Shield life as she could, Daisy’s inclusion obviously notwithstanding. Her parents were used to taking things at face value. Arthur and Alice had more questions but most were out of simple natural curiosity and they accepted everything with relative ease.

With the deep family conversations out of the way, Daisy and Jemma had spent the days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve alternating between normal home time and spending time at the base (as a family), helping to track down more relatives of the kids that had been experimented on and arranging transportation for pick up or drop offs. It turned out that some of them had been injected with inhibitors that prevented their abilities from being used. Lincoln and to some extent Jemma had been studying samples and pouring through data to figure out how they worked.

This was one of the reasons Lark’s ability appeared as suddenly as it had – her inhibitor injections had worn off and so her ability had appeared. Bobbi and Hunter were working carefully with her to help her find ways to learn how to properly control the power so that she didn’t accidentally burst anymore eardrums. It was a slow process, but they were making progress at least. The team that had been sent the day after Christmas to investigate Lark and Robin’s parents’ home only found an abandoned, condemned burnt out home that had nothing but bones left among its rubble-filled remains. No living grandparents were found. A maternal aunt was located and informed of the situation. Her husband was so vile in his anti-Inhuman rhetoric that the team had been forced off the property to avoid violent confrontation.

Aside from Lark and Robin there were two other Inhuman children still living at the base. One was a twelve year-old girl who had been living with her grandmother when her powers had developed after a murky incident involving fish oil pills. Her name was Zahra. She was a very small girl for her age and when they had first gathered her up and carted her onto the bus, most of those assessing her health were estimating her age to be eight or nine. The doctors’ assessment stated she had been subjected to extreme malnourishment, unknown quantities of the inhibitor that samples had been collected of from the facility’s lab before the bomb’s placement, possible corporal punishment and ‘unknown experiments.’ At the moment most of the kids who had come through the base from the facility had had this listed in their file. Some of them had been able to tell the doctors about the experiments they had been subjected to which had made combing through the archive of data and videos easier on them since Daisy still had all of that to go through from the flash drive that had siphoned the information to them in the first place.

May had taken a more involved interest in Zahra after the first day she had sat with the girl on the 25th. Zahra hadn’t said a word by then and May had noticed the dull stare in her pale green eyes. The doctors couldn’t tell May if the wilted and lethargic look about the girl was due to the inhibitors or something else. May decided that Zahra needed something more than being cooped up in another lab/hospital room since that was where they had rescued her from. Before the change, her favorite hobbies were gymnastics and gardening with her grandmother. Phil had managed to get that information out of her, though it was through labored writing on a tablet. With determination, May had raided more of the clothes that Daisy and Jemma brought to bundle Zahra up against the cold and then had carried her up to the roof, where some of the agents had set up a rooftop garden on a portion of the building’s roof that wasn’t covered in solar paneling.

Zahra had perked up almost immediately. She began to speak too. She begged to go inside the greenhouse and as soon as they were inside had peeled some layers of clothing off until she was down to a t-shirt and some long-john bottoms and socks. She begged May to let her stay and May helped her move around the greenhouse for hours. Zahra didn’t stop speaking the entire time. She spoke mostly to the plants as she checked on each and every one. When she reached a tomato plant that didn’t seem to want to grow properly, she had knelt down next to the short vine and began whispering to it. Her fingers touched the soil it was potted in and May watched as the yellowing, withered vine morphed into a lush emerald color. The vine itself swelled as the leaves stood to attention to absorb the sun reflecting through the glass panels. The small tomato fruit bud or two on the vine swelled and shifted to a bright green from its former yellowing chartreuse color and the newly reinvigorated plant vine wound around the post it was tied to for support, reaching up for the sunlight.

Zahra had smiled and whispered a few more words of encouragement to the plant before promising to come and visit it again the next day. She had looked over at May at that point while May stared in awe at the ability, and had thanked her for bringing them up to the roof and greenhouse. May stayed in the greenhouse with Zahra for another two hours before the sunset drew them back inside. At that point, May noticed that Zahra’s pallor was a much deeper tawny shade than the pale fawn color it had taken on in the lab at the facility and while in the medical wing. Her pallid green eyes had also turned a full and bright emerald green and the hazy, vacant expression she had worn seemed to have been eradicated by the visit. No longer had she looked lethargic and wilted but energized and lively, though still a great deal weaker than any child should have been thanks to the malnutrition, experiments and mistreatment.

Zahra became May’s shadow after that day. She wandered around, obeying any instruction May gave her and occasionally asking to go to the greenhouse. May set aside a few hours each day to take Zahra up to the greenhouse to talk to the plants, to cheer herself up and to gain her pallor and energy back with a recharge.

The last child who remained at the base was a three year-old boy with auburn hair and a smattering of freckles all about his face and arms. He had cheerful gray eyes and a mischievous crooked smirk that rivaled Daisy’s. He too was suffering from malnutrition when he arrived but not to the extent that the other children had been. For a few days the inhibitors that he had been subjected to via IV line had kept his abilities from appearing. In that time he wandered around the base, getting underfoot until he came across Fitz who had been working on an electrical project. At that point the boy, Franklin Volta though he had quickly become ‘Frankie’ to those around him, decided that he liked Fitz better than any of the other people at the base. Fitz discovered that Frankie was a Technopath…after he repeatedly turned on a television because he liked the cartoon that had been on, by touching only the side of the television. After that, Fitz started testing to see what other control over electrical technology Frankie could wield, though he kept it easy and nothing scary. Frankie was just a little kid after all and Fitz didn’t want him to accidentally get hurt. When he was tired, Frankie liked to turn out the lights in the room he was in, usually by flicking his eyelids closed a certain way or by putting a hand to the wall for the electrical wiring inside it. They tried to keep him away from the medical wing because he could set off the alarms on the various machines, which he did whenever he was lonely and wanted someone to come running. Whenever he was scared, he turned on all lights, TVs, computers, radios, phones and devices within a ten foot radius of himself.

The first week in the base with the remaining kids who couldn’t be reunited with relatives or guardians had been chaos. New Year’s Eve had provided the group with a reason to gather for a small celebration together so that they could all get more acquainted with Lark, Robin, Zahra and Frankie since it seemed, at least for the time being, that they would remain a part of the base and the core team’s group. The group that had gathered for the party consisted of the Johnson-Simmons family, May, Coulson, Hunter, Bobbi, Fitz, Alisha, Mack and Lincoln and the kids of course, Lark, Robin, Zahra and Frankie.

Aside from the fact that they were celebrating inside an underground secret operative headquarters, the celebration had been a lively family affair. There had been food, some games (to entertain the kids), drinks (to entertain some of the adults) and just before midnight they had squeeze out onto the roof with blankets and noisemakers to watch various firework shows as they bloomed and popped in the distance.

Shortly after midnight it had started snowing heavily and the Johnson-Simmons family had found themselves stuck bunking at the base. It wasn’t really a problem for them. The house would still be there when they returned and Elvis had fresh food and water available to him thanks to a dispenser that Fitz had built them that hung on the wall above his bowls and released at specific times when programmed from Jemma or Daisy’s phone.

Daisy was the first of the Johnson-Simmons brood to wake, having all settled in for bed in their old bunk. Robbie was crying and she slipped out of bed to get to him before he woke up Jemma or Lily. Jemma did stir a bit, but Daisy kissed her cheek and told her to go back to sleep. She gathered Robbie and his travel bag and carried them out of the room and quickly down the hall toward the unoccupied common room. Now that she was holding him and talking quietly to him, he calmed down since he knew his needs would be met.

“You are one stinky little man, buddy,” Daisy chuckled and scrunched her nose as she laid him down on the coffee table on top of his changing pad and started undoing the snaps on his footed pajamas. Robbie stared at her in the dim light of the room and Daisy couldn’t resist the urge to lean over and blow a quiet raspberry on his tummy once his pjs and onsie were clear. The action elicited a half giggle, half gurgling coo from the baby right before Robbie’s fist swung to his mouth and he started drooling on it. “Yeah, you giggle away while I clean your bum,” Daisy chuckled again.

Having been out of infant diaper practice for some years now until the last week, she made quick work of changing Robbie before she tucked everything back into the travel bag and snapped Robbie back into his onsie and footie pajamas. She scooped him up with his blanket and brought him to rest on her shoulder as he started making more whimpering noises and tried to start sucking at the shoulder of her thermal shirt. “Should we grab you an early morning snack, what d’ya think?” She grabbed the offending dirty diaper to take it to a trashcan with a cover to make it a bit less offensive. Once she discarded the diaper, she headed for the kitchen with a slight bounce in her step as she patted and rubbed Robbie’s back while talking with him to try and keep him calm until she could get a bottle set for him.

Jemma and Daisy might have been wholly surprised by the suddenness of the addition to their family, but they fell into routine with it with relative (if sleepy) ease. Daisy yawned as she turned down the hall the kitchen was in and slowed her pace as she heard voices already in there.

“Are you really serious about this?” It was Alisha. She sounded wary.

“Yeah, yes. I think I am,” Fitz answered.

“It’s a lot of responsibility,” Alisha countered.

“Of course it is,” Fitz replied.

“Are you sure you’re not thinking about it because you feel guilty?”

“What would I possibly have to feel guilty about?”

“I don’t know, maybe the fact that he’s an orphan?”

“I can feel sympathy without it affecting my judgment in this capacity, you know, I am a human.”

“Yes and I’m not.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know it’s not.”

“Then why’d you say it?”

“I’m trying to make sure you’ve thought it through thoroughly.”

“He likes the things I’m into working on. It’s a shared bond.”

“He  _ controls _ the things you’re working on, Leo,  _ at will _ .”

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

“Unless he gets mad at you and throws a fit.”

Fitz paused then. “Okay, I reckon you have a point there…” He sighed. “He’s attached to me.”

“So am I, boy wonder,” Alisha replied.

Fitz opened his mouth to reply but Robbie let out an impatient whimper as Daisy was rounding the corner into the kitchen. “Hey, guys,” she stopped inside the threshold when she saw them and tried to pretend she hadn’t overheard. “Sorry to interrupt an early morning tea party,” she grinned. “The boy child required a bottle session,” she explained.

Fitz offered her a small smile. “Not at all, we were just having a quick tea and chat, please feel free to join us,” He offered.

“Thanks,” Daisy smiled as she passed them to hear for the specific cupboard she and Jemma had stored some Robbie-related items, namely clean bottles and formula at the moment. She began to gather the items she needed so she could mix up a bottle and then set it to warm up on the stove. “I promise we’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes,” she added.

“That’s okay, we need an outside opinion,” Alisha said. Fitz tried to interrupt her but Alisha was too fast. “Leo is thinking of speaking to Coulson about adopting Frankie.”

Daisy’s eyebrows jumped, though she had already gathered as much from what she had overheard. “Really?” She asked. “Seems to be a lot of that going around the base lately,” she smiled.

“Hm? How so?” Fitz’s brow furrowed.

“Well, Bobbi and Hunter are house hunting so they’ll have somewhere to raise Lark and Robin since they want to keep their promise to make sure they don’t get separated,” Daisy said. “And don’t tell me May and Coulson aren’t in some kind of super domestic sphere of weird, dancing around the subject with each other on whether or not they’re going to take Zahra in. May’s probably going to do it whether or not Coulson wants to.”

“Huh…didn’t know about the house hunting…” Fitz mused.

“I did,” Alisha said. “I don’t think Coulson’s opposed to the other stuff, though. Doesn’t seem like much of a debate for them really.”

“But it’s a debate for me?” Fitz asked.

“I’m involved in this too, though,” Alisha pointed out.

Fitz’s eyebrows hiked up his forehead. “Since when? I thought you wanted everything off the books and, what was it…string-free?”

Daisy tried to stifle a chuckle but failed. “Oh, Fitz…” She sighed. “So smart…but still so much to learn…” She mused as she set the bottle in a pot of water on the stove to warm it. She shifted her weight from foot to foot to sway with Robbie as she waited and glanced over her shoulder at the others. “Although, honestly, Alisha, I think you’d have a much better go of it than the rest of us with extra copies to go around,” She teased with a chuckle.

“She has a good point,” Fitz said.

Alisha leveled her gaze on Fitz. “Don’t put me on a your Pros and Cons list just because there are more of me for chores,” She scoffed.

Daisy snickered as the bickering continued behind her. “Listen close, kiddo,” She said to Robbie. “This is how Uncle Fitz is going to end up single again,” She joked. 

“I  _ am  _ single?” Fitz sounded confused. He looked at Alisha. “Am I single? Are we…?” He waved a finger back and forth between them. 

Daisy bit into her bottom lip and stifled a chuckle as the two continued on with their bits of bickering. When the bottle was warmed up enough she set it on the counter to lose just a little heat while she turned off the stove and got rid of the pot and water it was heated in. “Good luck, guys,” She grabbed the bottle, slipped out of the room and walked back to the common room. She settled on the couch and tested the formula on her wrist just to make sure it was safe and then sunk down in her seat and propped her feet up on the table, knees bent as she settled Robbie so he was lying cradled in one arm while she held the bottle for him with the other. He stared up at her while he ate and Daisy quietly started talking to him. 

\--

Robbie had been fed, burped and rocked back to sleep in Daisy’s arms within a half hour of warming up the bottle. She sat in one of the rocking recliners in the common room, gently rocking the chair with her foot. All bundled back up in his blanket, Daisy was entranced by the relaxed look on his pudgy little baby face as she listened to the short puffs of his even little breaths while he dreamed away in her arms. Just like she used to do with Lily after she was born, Daisy would have been content to spend hours just staring at Robbie and watching every little muscle twitch or whatever way her wormed around when his body shifted. Soon she would return to the bunk, settle Robbie back down into the playpen to sleep some more and climb back into bed with Jemma but for right now she was content for the extra little bit of solo time with the baby, even if Robbie was snoozing away through it.

May was the first to wander into the common room, having spotted Daisy and Robbie on her way to the kitchen no doubt for a quick bite and some coffee before her morning routine.  For a few moments, she watched Daisy and the baby from the doorway and thought about the way in which things had come full circle for Daisy and Jemma, from the time Jemma returned from another universe up until this very point. There were no emergencies, no Earth-shattering, apocalypse-rearing situations that needed their focus right in this moment. There were no current missions, no interruptions, just the daily research and development. Daisy and Jemma were officially no longer field agents. They were still agents, of course. Scientific research, development and study would always be necessary and with the changing times they would always need Daisy upgrading and protecting their technology. They would have some semblance of a ‘normal’ life in the sense that they wouldn’t have to constantly fret over which of them wasn’t coming home at the end of the day. May intended to make sure it stayed that way for the two of them. They had both been through the ringer and they had sacrificed and put themselves through more than enough to have contributed their fair share.

“Nǎinai always thinks she can sneak up on us,” Daisy whispered to the slumbering baby. A crooked smile curled up her lips. “But we know better, don’t we?”

May smirked and pushed off the door with her shoulder to walk further into the room. “Won’t sleep?” she asked as she sat down on  a cushion of the nearby love seat and crossed one leg over the other.

“Was hungry and needed a change,” Daisy shrugged as she answered quietly. “Thought I’d grab an extra few minutes before heading back to bed,” she explained.

May nodded. “I think you might be stuck with us another day,” she said. “It’s really picking up out there. They’re expecting it to last for another ten to fifteen hours of heavy snow before it tapers off. They’re expecting another two feet between now and then,” she explained.

Daisy nodded, grateful for the update. “No skin off my back, we don’t mind spending time with everyone,” she shrugged and smiled. “We’ve got Elvis set and I’ve checked over the remote monitors for the house a couple of times. I have alerts set to my phone just in case the power goes out. We can get the neighbors to pick him up if needed,” she said, thinking out loud as she rocked in the chair gently.

May nodded and Daisy seized the moment alone to inquire further into the situation with Coulson and Zahra. “So,” she said, “How’s the greenhouse holding up in this weather?”

May’s right eyebrow twitched upward slightly. “Your monitors and remote apps make it very easy to regulate the temperature on days like today. The UV lights and sprinklers are on their timers. So far they’re all in working order.”

Daisy nodded. “How long do you think Zahra will sleep in before she wants to cross the snowy rooftop wasteland for a garden romp?” She grinned when she spotted the way May’s lips briefly tipped upward in a fond little smile.

May glanced down at the watch on her wrist. “I think I’ve got a few more hours at least,” she mused.

Daisy chuckled softly. “She’s been doing a lot better since you figured out her ability,” She said and May nodded. “You two’ve grown pretty close over the last few days…”

“You’re being very subtle this morning,” May retorted.

Daisy grinned at her. “I’m nothing if not subtle,” she joked and that fond half smile crossed May’s lips again. “Coulson had her working on Lola the other day, y’know,” she said as she moved to stand up, careful not to jostle Robbie as she did so she didn’t wake him. May’s eyebrows arched slightly. “It’s kind of cute that you guys all fit together…” She gave May a small wink before she left the common room to head back to the bunk.

May watched her go, a thoughtful creased wrinkling her brow as her mind began to mull the words over. After a few minutes, May continued on her way into the kitchen.

\--

Daisy carefully laid Robbie on his back in the playpen and made sure he was properly tucked in. She stopped by the small folding bed that Lily was sleeping on between the bed and the playpen to fix the covers that Lily had kicked about in her sleep then tucked some of Lily’s hair behind her ear and kissed the side of her head. She lifted the covers and climbed into bed, trying not to wake Jemma but failing. Jemma inhaled a deep breath and shifted when she felt the bed dip and the warmth of another body returned.

“S’wrong?” She murmured, one eye cracked open, the other not quite there yet.

Daisy smiled at the sleepy concern on Jemma’s face and reached out to tuck some stray strands of her hair behind her ear. Her fingertips lingered along the curve of Jemma’s face as she settled into bed. “Everything’s alright, Robbie was just hungry,” She assured her wife and a moment later, Jemma shifted to cuddle into her embrace and set her head back down heavily on the pillow.

“Okay,” Jemma murmured.

Daisy kissed her forehead and nuzzled their noses together. “Go back to sleep,” she whispered. 

Jemma was clearly too sleepy to argue. “Loveyou,” the words mushed together as Jemma cuddled up closer and buried her face into Daisy’s collar.

Daisy turned her head down and kissed the top of Jemma’s as she wound her arms around her wife and adjusted the covers over them. “I love you more, nerd,” she said.

“Nu-uh,” Jemma was already on her way back to sleep when she murmured the sleepy reply.

Daisy wasn’t sure how everything was going to play out for her family, both her immediate and extended family, but she knew a lot of changes were coming and she knew they were all for the better. Their family had expanded and it was going to expand further. Life might still be hectic, but 

it was going to be hectic in a much different way than it had been before. There were changes to be made and new routines to ease into. In the end her family was all together, all safe and sound and, currently, all snoozing happily in soft, even breaths. Daisy had never expected this life to be hers but, somehow she had arrived here and she damn sure wasn't about to take it for granted ever again, not after all it had taken to get here. She closed her eyes and let sleep claim her once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd wanted to write an epilogue for this story for awhile, not because I thought the ending didn't wrap things up necessarily, but I did kind of leave a set up for a future sequel I suppose, didn't I? 
> 
> ON TO THE OTHER STORY CHAPTER UPDATES I'M STILL WORKING ON!

**Author's Note:**

> Soooooo I love all of your skimmons stories (and nonskimmons stories too!), it took me awhile to come off of lurking to leave you guys kudos and stuff (sorrrrry my shyness comes in waves of evil!) I thought I'd try my hand at attempting to entertain you in return!! Please feel free to leave feedback to let me know if it worked! (or not! No pressure! ;D)
> 
> Title comes from the song _Until We Get There_ by Lucius (if you haven't, check out their album Wildewoman! It's amazing!!).


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